“We received a tip from an unproven source claiming to have knowledge of discussions within Apple to possibly purchase Barnes & Noble,” Jonathan S. Geller reports for BGR.
“While this might seem like a strange move at first, it actually makes a whole lot of sense,” Geller writes. “Apple would be able to take Barnes & Noble’s vast digital library of books and publications, and fold them into Apple’s own iBooks store.”
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Geller writes, “Apple would have no use for the NOOK, and that would likely be discontinued in this scenario. Apple could then convert some of the brick and mortar Barnes & Noble stores into Apple stores and close the rest.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Judge Bork” for the heads up.]
WTF is this guy smoking? Buying a bookstore chain doesn’t give you the right to digitize all the books it carries!?! If, and this is a BIG if, Apple is interested in Borders & Noble it’d only be for their real-estate/commercial leases…period!
Even so, I’d wager the biggest Apple Store (sq feet) is far smaller than the average B&N. Apple just wouldn’t need all that space. Even if they did, why would they purchase a company just to get their building lease? Apple is far more attractive to a commercial retail developer than B&N is, and could easily win a bidding war over a lease with traffic/sqft figures alone.
Makes no sense at all. For one thing, owning a bookstore does not mean you instantly can convert all the books to digital format, and distribute them. Go tell the RIAA that I just bought a chain of music stores, no now I can rip and sell all the content.
There are publishers that would have to agree to the terms. And Apple already has that as a strength of their own.