Recent media reports just declared that software maker Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is up to exercise an acquisition of Nook Media for nearly 1 billion US dollars. Moreover, the company has committed another investment of 180 million US dollars in Nook Media to develop content for its new tablets.
In 2012 Microsoft invested nearly 300 million US dollars in order to get the benefits of Nook’s e-books, e-readers and tablets. Currently Microsoft owns about 16 percent stake in Nook Media. Barnes & Noble spun off Nook Media last October and since then it is out of the Nook business.
This deal is much in favor of Microsoft since the company is interested to fetch more customers from other platforms to its Windows 8 operating system. Shares of Microsoft remained flat and seemingly unaffected following the news. While shares of Barnes & Noble advanced more than 27 percent in pre market trade.
Around 10 million Nook tablets and readers have been sold, and the unit has some seven million subscribers who buy e-books and other content from Barnes & Noble, according to TechCrunch.
The website, citing internal documents, said the Android-based Nook tablet would be discontinued by 2014, at which time Nook content would be distributed through makers of other devices through an app.It was unclear if the third-party maker would be Microsoft, which introduced its own Surface tablet last year using the Windows operating system.
The report said Microsoft was preparing to pay $1 billion to buy the digital assets of Nook Media LLC, the digital book and college book joint venture with Barnes & Noble and other investors.