Andre Yoskowitz
5 Jun 2014 19:39
Barnes & Noble, the struggling book retailer, has announced the addition of Samsung as a hardware partner for upcoming Nook-powered tablets.
Samsung will co-brand its Galaxy Tab 4 with the custom Nook operating system, almost a year after B&N stopped selling their own hardware tablets following horrendous sales.
A 7-inch model will go on sale in August, on sale at B&N brick-and-mortar stores and online, as well.
"We are very excited and proud to partner with Samsung, a world-class technology and tablet leader, to create customized co-branded devices featuring our valuable NOOK reading experience and digital content catalog for Barnes & Noble customers nationwide," said Michael P. Huseby, Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble, Inc. "Standing behind these great new devices will be the power of our 40,000 Barnes & Noble booksellers combined with our deep bookselling and retail expertise to provide sales support and personalized in-store customer service for our lineup of new Samsung Galaxy Tab 4 NOOK products. Partnering with Samsung brings our customers great new products and evidences our commitment to our NOOK customers and growing our digital content business."
The move appears to be the next step in Samsung's ongoing efforts to get away from complete Android dependency. Last week the company revealed their first Tizen phone, and the Korean giant has also started building more Windows Phones.