3 ms·
The way you phrase it, it sounds like B&N is suing MS for ideological reasons, but they are profit-maximizing capitalists just like everyone else in this game.
by sethg 15y ago
The way you phrase it, it sounds like B&N is suing MS for ideological reasons, but they are profit-maximizing capitalists just like everyone else in this game.
The difference, IMHO, is that B&N has very little history as a consumer electronics company (and therefore has no defensive patents to bring to the table), but sees cheap ebook readers as its only hope to be a viable company in the long run (and therefore does not want MS license fees to be a perpetual drag on their profits).
If B&N became a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony or Dell, they would settle this lawsuit in a week.
- brudgers 15y agoThe parent comment appeared to be assuming an consumer ideologies were relevant to the actions of various companies with interests in Android licensing or litigation. I agree that B&N is struggling for its existence and I believe that their actions are more consistent with desperation than with an intelligible long term strategy for growth in a changing market. The drag on profits argument is pretty weak in my opinion since the real money from Nook sales should come from ongoing content sales rather than the sale of the initial hardware, i.e. profits are more dependent on the viability of the Nook ecosystem than on the cost of manufacturing the device. It might be argued that essentially, B&N is choosing to litigate Google's approach to IP while Google clearly has attempted to disassociate itself from the IP issues which surround Android. And furthermore, that B&N is choosing to enter a litigation arena, patents, in which it has very little institutional expertise.