Considering William Lynch’s history with the company, this news probably doesn’t come as a huge surprise. Lynch oversaw the entire Nook line, including the E Ink Nook readers and the tablet line.

Considering that B&N is abandoning tablet development and focusing just on the Nook line, Lynch’s legacy with the company can hardly be said to be successful.

I did a bit of research on Lynch, and, according to Wikipedia,

From 2000-2004, Lynch was Vice President and General Manager, eCommerce, for Palm Inc., where he oversaw Palm’s Web properties, including: Palm.com, the Palm Online Store, the Palm Software Connection and the Palm.Net wireless ISP.

There’s a bit of interesting history linking Palm and B&N. In 2001, Palm Inc. acquired Peanut Press, one of the earliest e-book stores (and where I bought my first e-book). This was during Lynch’s tenure with Palm Inc., and I wonder if he was involved in that purchase. Then in 2008, Fictionwise acquired the bookstore, and B&N bought Fictionwise in 2009.

William LynchThis is all relevant because it shows Lynch has a history with e-books and e-readers—don’t forget that the Palm Pilot was actually one of the very first e-readers. It makes sense that he pushed the Nook line. Too bad it didn’t take off for him.

Enough history. What about the future?

B&N announced a reorganization along with Lynch’s resignation. There will be no CEO overseeing the entire company. Instead, the retail and digital side will be managed separately, with Michael Huseby replacing Lynch as CEO of Nook Media. Mitchell Klipper will remain CEO of B&N’s retail division.

This makes it look as if B&N wants to split the retail and digital divisions, which we’ve known was a possibility since Leonard Riggio filed paperwork in February announcing that he wanted to buy the retail side. Microsoft currently owns 17.6 percent of the digital division, which makes them a likely buyer for Nook Media.

Huseby has a history in the cable business, which leads me to wonder if Nook Media might head toward video content. While the B&N branded tablets are being discontinued, we’re likely to see third-party Nook tablet devices in the future, possibly running a variant of Windows 8. Might they be video devices first and e-readers second? To soon to tell yet, but it’ll be interesting to see what comes.

NO COMMENTS

  1. Thus why we just sold our NOOK Color and Tablet and ridded ourselves of them in this house. Took a hit, but better than being stuck with unsupported devices. Now might sell the Simple Touch and be done with these eBooks. I am on my 2nd Simple Touch, since one had issues 5 months in, and the new one NEVER syncs to last page read from my NOOK iPhone app no matter how hard I try (it does go the pther way, however.. app syncs to NOOK – go figure), so the advertised feature is a bust! Too frustrating in the end,

    I too started with Peanut Press and Palm, and grew into loving eBooks. B&N atempted eBooks with the Microsoft format, and abandoned it 2 years in or less very quickly, without giving us time to copy over our books. At least we got our Fictionwise books through that acquisition. But honestly, this company will problably be going whole hog into saving their stores and book selling business, and I don’t think having one of their devices would be a wise choice right now.

  2. @Julius While I was never crazy about the Nook Simple Touch line, I really like my HD, and I’m keeping it. With Google Play, I’m not too worried about lack of support. It’ll be good for a couple of years, at least. By then I’m hoping the iPad mini will have a Retina display. It’ll probably be my next e-reader, assuming something better doesn’t come along.

    With an N2A card, the Color and Tablets are also functional devices for the near future. They made good hardware, which is why I’m disappointed to see them get out of the hardware business.

  3. I can see keeping the HD, but ours were not privy to the Google market, and we felt it was time to cut the loss as we can’t see it being supported any longer. Didn’t want to bother with the N2A cards and spend yet more money on them, as cheap as it is to do. They were too sluggish anyway. HD is better, but we didn’t have those. Simple Touch is really not worth what they charge since it is basically a reader, and why not just buy the book? All around poor strategy, and typical of them…. go whole hog into it, then go whole hog out of it! As a consumer, they tire me.

  4. We’ve known about the split between Retail and NOOK since long before last February. On January 5, 2012, B&N issued a press release that stated, “the Company has decided to pursue strategic exploratory work to separate the NOOK business.” It also quoted (now-departing) CEO William Lynch, “We see substantial value in what we’ve built with our NOOK business in only two years, and we believe it’s the right time to investigate our options to unlock that value.” On April 30, 2012, B&N announced that the NOOK business had indeed been spun off, with Microsoft as a minority partner.

    In the year-end conference call a few weeks ago, Lynch said that NOOK Media LLC, “has been financing itself since October.” So it’s financially independent of B&N. At least for the moment.

  5. No matter it’s sliced and diced, allaround a sloppy mess. Most conusmers will jsut abandon B&N digital products over the wind down and stregy change period as they don;t want to waste monies and time nothem. Who would at this point other than those looking for bargain basement pricing and/or have the know how to later the device for future use? It’s just sad that B&N did not do this earlier, or very well. They took the risk, as a company alreadyin trouble, and now it’s come back to bite them. Most consumers will rpbably stay away as they have been doing. It’s just another thing souring me on the digital world we are building. Great ideas, but poor execution in many cases.

  6. TYPOS FIXED…sorry. Keys sticking in the humidity!

    No matter how it’s sliced and diced, all around a sloppy mess. Most consumers will just abandon B&N digital products over the wind down and statregy change period as they won’t want to waste monies and time on them. Who would at this point other than those looking for bargain basement pricing and/or have the know how to alter the device for future use? It’s just sad that B&N did not do this earlier, or very well. They took the risk, as a company trouble, and now it’s come back to bite them. Most consumers will probably stay away as they have been doing. It’s just another thing souring me on the digital world we are building. Great ideas, but poor execution in many cases

  7. @Doug. Thanks for the reminders. It’s been hard to keep track of every move B&N has been making.

    @Julius, you’re probably right. Not raising confidence in B&N. Not there’s been a lot of confidence to go around recently.

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