B&N Is Done Making NOOKs

This was inevitable. It was pretty obvious from all the crazy discounts B&N was offering recently that it had no intention of making more tablets. It is better to stop now instead of facing even more losses in the future:

The company plans to significantly reduce losses in the Nook segment by limiting risks associated with manufacturing. Going forward, the company intends to continue to design eReading devices and reading platforms, while creating a partnership model for manufacturing in the competitive color tablet market. Thus, the widely popular lines of Simple Touch and Glowlight products will continue to be developed in house, and the company’s tablet line will be co-branded with yet to be announced third party manufacturers of consumer electronics products.

The NOOK division was only going to lose more money considering that sales for the latest NOOK tablets did not take off. Even with Google Play enabled on them, B&N was going to have a difficult time staying competitive in the tablet business. Barnes & Noble is going to sell the rest of its inventory in the upcoming months. That means more crazy NOOK discounts may be on the way.

B&N will continue offering support and upgrades for its tablets. It seems the E-ink NOOK devices are here to stay though.

We are taking big steps to reduce the losses in the NOOK segment, as we move to a partner-centric model in tablets and reduce overhead costs. We plan to continue to innovate in the single purpose black-and-white eReader category, and the underpinning of our strategy remains the same today as it has since we first entered the digital market, which is to offer customers any digital book, magazine or newspaper, on any device,

explained William Lynch, Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble. We can’t say we are surprised by any of these developments, are you?