eBooks and Barnes and Noble CEO Resigns

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Turmoil in the U.S. book industry continues with the latest announcement of the resignation of William Lynch, as CEO of Barnes and Noble, the largest, not to say, only bookstore chain in the U.S. Reason for the resignation is most likely the flop of the Nook. This reader was supposed to save Barnes and Noble and offer some direct competition to Amazon's Kindle. Well, even with Microsoft's $650 million dollar investment last year in Nook's development, Nook sales have been declining this year.

The New York Times technology columnist David Pogue had this to say:

"So the bottom line is all bad news. People who bought e-books from Barnes & Noble may wind up with libraries they can’t read. Amazon no longer has a competitor to keep it on its toes (and its prices low). The future of Barnes & Noble’s e-book business now looks murky, which means that even more customers will stay away, creating a vicious cycle of declining sales.

In the end, it may be that all we can salvage from this smoking mess is a lesson or two — although what they might be escapes me at the moment." Hear, hear.