The competition for the consumers’ dollars is a tough pursuit in today’s tablet market. There are winners, and there will be losers. Barnes and Noble may be running out of gas as a provider of tablets. Hardware is sold at low margins, so there is not a lot of room to navigate when wanting to offer sales and promotions. Amazon can offer their hardware at a loss because they have been able to monetize a wide spectrum of services, as well as getting the consumer to buy more stuff. Barnes and Noble is mostly limited to books and still supports many physical locations. Without a good return, Barnes and Noble cannot afford to keep up with Amazon and other low cost OEM Android tablets.

Now that Barnes and Noble has a joint venture with Microsoft, Nook Co., it is possible that Nook the brand will morph into an app or set of apps that run on 3rd party machines or on Microsoft Surface slates. What is going to happen? B&N is probably going to exit the tablet business and concentrate on dedicated eReaders, where it does offer a good selection with the simple touch and glow.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/25/technology/mobile/barnes-and-noble-nook/index.html