Barnes & Noble will sell Plastic Logic's QUE, an e-reader targeted at business users, in its bookstores and through its online storefront. The announcement shows that Barnes & Noble considers the QUE a non-competitor against its own Nook e-reader, which was rolled out in a high-profile event on Oct. 20 in New York City. The Nook will compete heartily against Amazon.com's Kindle e-reader this holiday season.
Barnes & Noble announced an agreement to sell Plastic
Logic's QUE e-reader through both its brick-and-mortar stores and online
retailer, despite the bookseller rolling out its own Nook e-reader last week.
Barnes & Noble's in-store placement of the QUE will be near displays for the
Nook.
This marks the second collaborative announcement between the
two companies. Earlier in 2009, Plastic Logic announced that QUE users would be
able to download books through Barnes & Noble's online bookstore. While the
QUE will include the normal functionality of e-readers, Plastic Logic has been
promoting the device as most suitable for a business audience, touting its
ability to download and display .PDFs, Microsoft Word and PowerPoint documents.
The Barnes & Noble online bookstore includes some 700,000
books-with more being added daily-and 500,000 free public-domain volumes from
Google.
Plastic
Logic plans to debut pricing and details of the QUE at the 2010 Consumer
Electronics Show in January. The device, which measures 8.5 by 11 inches,
will utilize AT&T's 3G network and Wi-Fi for wireless downloading. However,
Plastic Logic has been reluctant to share many other details about the QUE, even
taking steps to shoot its publicity photos in such a way that obscures the
e-reader's screen and button configuration.
The QUE has been touted heavily by Barnes & Noble over
the past week, even as
the
bookseller announced the Nook at a high-profile event in New York City on Oct.
20.
The Nook includes two screens, including an e-ink display for
reading text and an iPhone-like multi-touch strip that allows users to navigate
their libraries and purchase new books. AT&T provides the downloading
service for the device, which will be priced at $259 and go on sale at the end
of November. A "LendMe" feature allows users to share books from Nook-to-Nook
for a period of 14 days.
Both the Nook and the QUE face substantial competition in the
form of Amazon.com's Kindle e-reader, which has been released in multiple
iterations and recently had the price of its original version dropped to $259.
While Amazon.com has emphasized the porting of e-books primarily onto its proprietary device (they also have an iPhone app),
Barnes & Noble's announced strategy from the outset involves having users not only rely on
the Nook, but also book-downloading apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Barnes & Noble may see Amazon.com as its rival, but a
completely different situation exists with Plastic Logic.A statement from Barnes
& Noble suggested that the bookseller sees the QUE as occupying a different
competitive segment from the Nook.
"We're excited to expand our relationship with Plastic Logic
to include not only an eBookstore, but also a physical presence in our
bookstores nationwide and on BN.com," William J. Lynch, president of BN.com, is
quoted in an Oct. 27 press release. "Carrying [Nook] and QUE allows us to
provide consumers a one-stop destination in Barnes & Noble stores to demo
and buy two of the best eBook readers on the market."
The Plastic Logic e-reader, Lynch further asserted, plays
into Barnes & Noble's road map for the devices:
"It also supports our digital strategy to offer customers
choice, expand the market overall and deliver on our promise to provide any
book, any time, anywhere."
Editor's Note: A paragraph has been revised to include mention of Amazon.com's Kindle iPhone app.
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