With Barnes & Noble in upheaval over losses in its digital reader division, consumers may wonder whether they should buy a Nook. But the better question, experts say, is whether an e-reader should be on the shopping list in the first place.
The company announced Monday that CEO William Lynch had resigned. That followed a fourth-quarter earnings report in which losses in the bookseller's Nook division more than doubled from the prior year, to $177 million.
Though Barnes & Noble did not immediately respond to requests for comment, it had said in June that it would continue making many Nook products. It said it would stop making the Nook HD tablet and instead plans to find a third party to make and sell co-branded Nook tablets.
"Consumers have the dominant major book reader defined in their collective minds, and that is the Kindle," said Alex Goldfayn, CEO of the Evangelist Marketing Institute. "This is Muhammad Ali versus a no-name challenger. It's not a fight Barnes & Noble is going to win."