

Barnes and Noble Laid Off Its Nook Hardware Engineering Staff - rajbala
http://www.businessinsider.com/barnes-and-noble-hardware-engineering-staff-2014-2?op=1

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chollida1
Meta note...

The HN title perfectly matches the articles title but the first line of the
article actually says:

"Barnes & Noble laid off its Nook hardware engineers, according to a source
that tipped Business Insider."

I only point this out because in North America, fired and laid off have two
very different connotations.

~~~
justin66
> I only point this out because in North America, fired and laid off have two
> very different connotations.

... to almost no one who does not work at a state unemployment office. I kid.
More accurate snark would be to say "to everyone except the person just
fired/laid off."

A friend who was just laid off mentioned the way certain people feel the need
to correct her when she mentions she was fired, and how hugely annoying that
is. I experienced a similar thing years ago amongst my former coworkers after
a large firing-I-mean-lay off. It all seems to have something to do with
making everyone except the person just fired/laid off maintain a certain level
of comfort, even though everyone understands that the effect of the thing is
exactly the same.

(back in the day it was probably all about whether the factory was going to
call you back in eventually or not)

~~~
pavedwalden
To me, "laid off" means it was structural, whereas "fired" implies that the
specific individual was deliberately gotten rid of. Also, I think "fired"
carries a connotation of blame. You don't get laid off for calling your boss
an asshole, you get fired.

~~~
gaius
Agreed. You would not want to say "I was fired" in your next job interview.

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fidotron
This is a shame. Their Android tablets were misguided, and never likely to be
competitive, but the e-ink readers were the only things really competitive
with the e-ink Kindles.

I always thought if they had opened up the Android e-ink reader market more
then they could have created a viable niche in reference applications, which
are a surprisingly lucrative sector.

~~~
callahad
Have you checked out Kobo's e-ink readers? From a hardware perspective, I
actually prefer the Kobo Aura to my own Kindle Paperwhite 2.

~~~
fidotron
I've not tried the latest ones, but the earlier ones just had a distinctly
unfinished and rushed vibe to them. Kind of neat, but hacked together.

It doesn't help that I'm in the Canadian market, and for a while Kobo existed
simply as an e-reader to take advantage of the fact it was more easily
available here than the Kindle, so I think we were exposed to rougher versions
of the initial product than elsewhere.

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pittsburgh
I work for Nook as a Rails developer in Palo Alto. I'm not authorized to speak
on behalf of the company, blah blah blah, but I just wanted to post a quick
comment saying that this news should NOT be interpreted as Nook going out of
business. In fact, we're actively hiring devs here in Palo Alto and also in
New York:
[http://www.nook.com/careers/locations](http://www.nook.com/careers/locations)

I really wish I could provide details, but I'll just say that I would be
extremely surprised if Nook wasn't around and doing well in five years. My
coworkers and I really enjoy working here, and none of us worry about job
security.

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AnotherDesigner
I really don't trust Amazon having a monopoly on any market especially one I
care about as much as books. While they still have competition, things seem to
be going in their favor. Even more so after the justice department handed them
control over the market again when they complained about Apple. Amazon is
taking the Walmart strategy: push your competitors out with unsustainable
pricing and then take over the market and charge whatever you want when
they're all gone.

~~~
Nicholas_C
>and charge whatever you want when they're all gone.

Where does Walmart do this? I've never been to a Walmart where pricing was out
of line. Moreover, predatory pricing is litigious at best and illegal at
worst.

~~~
Fasebook
How would you even know what predatory pricing is.

~~~
noarchy
I suspect that it is "predatory" if it puts you out of business. It becomes
illegal if you can convince a legislature to intervene (witness what happened
in France, to Amazon[1]). Consumers don't tend to complain about lower prices.

1: [http://www.france24.com/en/20140109-french-senators-pass-
ant...](http://www.france24.com/en/20140109-french-senators-pass-anti-amazon-
law-protect-small-retailers/)

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mkaziz
My (unsubstantiated) impression was that books on the Nook would always cost
more than for the Kindle. I think I automatically associate Amazon with
online, progressive and cheap, and B&N with clunky, b&m, and profit-focused.
That's why I never even considered buying a Nook.

~~~
rcthompson
In what sense is Amazon less profit-focused than B&N?

~~~
lmkg
Amazon is focused on growth and market control. It is willing to take a
smaller (short-term) profit in order to achieve those goals.

~~~
bpicolo
It's still profit focused, just for later.

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VonGuard
At this point, they should focus on the e-ink readers, and just offer a ton of
free books for them. Beat Amazon at their own game by not making any money on
the books.

~~~
erichurkman
At this point, does B&N have the cash to burn like that on a loss-leader?

~~~
VonGuard
It's kinda a suicide mission. B&N is very nicely fucked anyway. Not much they
can do but liquidate and compensate the shareholders sometime in the next 2 to
3 years.

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noarchy
I bought a Nook Color in early 2011 during a trip to the States (I live in
Canada). It was the first Android device on which I did any sort of mobile dev
or hacking. My first experiences with custom roms, in fact, was on my Nook
Color.

Unfortunately, the Nook lineup couldn't compete with what was rapidly emerging
onto the market. It didn't take long for my Nook Color to start collecting
dust once the Nexus 7 (still my tablet of choice, even though I own larger
ones) became available.

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tedsanders
I met a Nook engineer once, and she was convinced that the Nook was a better
product than the Kindle. It's too bad that it never took off (as far as I can
tell).

~~~
josh2600
It turns out marketing is a thing and when you go into a brick & mortar store
to buy a digital object people get confused.

This is another example of technical superiority not being enough to win (see
VHS vs Betamax as the classic example but there are a TON of these).

I found this article by Amir Hirsch to be a good reference point for products
in general, not just startups: [http://fpgacomputing.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-
stanford-start...](http://fpgacomputing.blogspot.com/2013/11/the-stanford-
startup-and-mit-startup.html)

~~~
mjn
> when you go into a brick & mortar store to buy a digital object people get
> confused

For some part of the market I think this was actually a strength, though
perhaps not a big enough strength, or not exploited well enough. We got my
uncle (American, aged mid-80s) a Nook for Christmas 2012, in large part
because we knew he could go to his local B&N to buy books and have them loaded
onto it. That's worked pretty well: he basically buys books like he used to,
except now they are more portable and he can zoom in to compensate for his
poor eyesight, which is easier than reading paper books with a magnifying
glass. With the Kindle we weren't sure whether he'd enjoy having to figure out
how to shop online at Amazon. He rarely uses computers, and even more rarely
uses the internet, so probably wouldn't buy books from a desktop connection.
So he'd have to buy them online from within the Kindle itself with no local
customer support available, which even to me seems like a confusing interface
(it's not _quite_ as bad as trying to navigate Google Play on a smartphone,
but it's not great).

~~~
josh2600
Confusion is an opportunity to provide education and build consumer trust. If
you're breaking intended behavior you need to pacify the confusion that
results (this is a social capital creation opportunity).

I do appreciate your point though and I think it's just another example of B&N
having poor marketing.

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penguinlinux
I love my Nook HD, it is a great Tablet, It has the google App Store and I can
extend the storage. I think it is a great alternative to other tablets out
there.

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cglace
I always wondered why B&N didn't spin the nook hardware division off and focus
on providing the content.

Either way this sucks. I own a nook simple touch and love it. Hope they still
keep their apps for other devices around.

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brianbreslin
I wonder if they could still succeed going pure software route. Would the
margins on the ebooks make sense? I.e. make bundling deals so nook is on every
tablet non-amazon that is shipped by default?

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placeybordeaux
>Update: After posting this, Barnes & Noble told us that it did not eliminate
its entire hardware department, but it declined to provide specifics.

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ForHackernews
Oh crap. I like my Nook.

~~~
mox1
Aye, I love my Nook HD+. Works great with Cyanogenmod. Too bad they crippled
the software so much in its default configuration (in the beginning anyway,
better today...too late).

Put vanilla Android on there with a high quality e-reader app (and maybe a
Nook Book Store), sell the HD+ for < $175 and they would have had a lot more
success in my opinion.

~~~
ahomescu1
Ironically, the Nook for Android and Nook Video apps don't work on Cyanogenmod
on the Nook HD/HD+ (not from the Play Store anyway, they do work if
sideloaded). B&N should at least put in the effort to enable them on CM.

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jkw
A bit misleading when the title states "fired" and the first sentence of the
article states "laid off"

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shmerl
That was expected, once MS bribed them to stop the failure with their patent
lawsuit.

