Revised agreement with Microsoft allows Barnes & Noble to drop support for its Nook Windows app

[Justin Kahn]

This week, Microsoft and Nook Media have amended the now two year old agreement between the two companies that will see some changes coming to the Nook Windows app. According to an 8-K filing by Barnes & Noble, Nook media is allowed to stop development on its yet to be released Windows Phone app and to stop distributing its Windows app.

However, based on reports it sounds as though Nook Media has some kind of replacement on the way for the Nook Windows app called the "Microsoft Consumer Reader." While the name might suggest otherwise, this is reported to be software and not some kind of Microsoft branded e-reader. Some believe it is part of a previously rumored e-reader push from Microsoft and an app that will support both Nook content and plain text.

According to previous leaks, there is also another app called the Microsoft Office Reader app, that was apparently shown to employees last year and will support PDFs and textbooks, among other things. This could be the same reader app the Xbox team is rumored to be working on, but there is no direct evidence to suggest that.

Nook Customer Care tweeted saying that it looks forward to launching the best reading app on Windows 8 "in the near future," (the tweet has since been deleted) so hopefully those who were into the Nook for Windows app, won't have to wait too long.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/55998-revised-agreement-with-microsoft-allows-barnes-noble-to-drop-support-for-its-nook-windows-app.html

 

[MrAnderson]

This is all strange to me. Maybe because BnN went completely Android (call it using a ladle) to try to keep a ship from sinking... Might have made Microsoft want to distance themselves from the name brand, and instead cut some of their losses with an agreement for them to develop/rename a new e-reader version of the Nook software.

This should hurt Nook brand in the long run, because what is a e-reader without its strong brand recognition behind it these days? If is becomes a vanilla Windows 8 app... and who's thinking Barnes and Noble eBooks. If the Nook branding is not at least drilled into customer's heads in the Windows 8 Store... I truly just don't get it...