Rival to Kindle Emerges Just in Time for Holiday Shopping
Barnes and Noble will be releasing Nook, its version of the Amazon Kindle, just in time for the holiday shopping season. The Nook promises to have all of the same general features as the Kindle, but will also become more iPod and iPhone user friendly by enabling touch-screen control. It looks like a really cool new tablet, but I wonder what Amazon is going to do to keep its Kindle sales up.
The only sizeable difference that I can seem to find between the two is that the Kindle has an international option that allows frequent travelers to read overseas. But the Nook will offer Wi-Fi capabilities, as well as free Wi-Fi in all Barnes and Noble stores. A product comparison can be found at the following link: http://tinyurl.com/yh92wj8.
This has to pose a huge problem for the PR people at Amazon. What are you supposed to do when another company comes out with basically the same product as yours, and matches the features you have and out-does some of the features by having touch screen? It’s not like Kindle will be coming out with a new model any time soon either: they just released their newest version (the one with the international capabilities) recently.
I personally think that iPhone, iPod, and Blackberry users will buy the Nook:
1) Because service is provided by AT&T
2) The Nook is capable of syncing with these devices, as well as PC and Mac computers.
Not to mention people who don’t like handling all of their problems online will be able to go into a Barnes and Noble if they have issues.
I’m interested to see the ad campaign war between these two companies come Thanksgiving and Christmas time. Who do you think will have better sales?
kbanesPR 