Barnes & Noble, Inc. (BKS) & Microsoft Corporation (MSFT): The Death of a Tablet

The end
Along the way, Nook fans and Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE:BKS) investors got little glimpses of an alternate future. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Pearson PLC (ADR) (NYSE:PSO) jumped into the Nook division, investing millions of dollars and at one point driving the value of the Nook division higher than the whole company’s market capitalization. That’s the future that I bought into — the future where the Nook became its own business.

In the end, it just wasn’t enough. The writing on the wall was the Nook’s falling market share. Really successful devices gain market share because customers need to have them. No one seemed to really need a Nook, and so the Nook never built itself up into anything. If I had paid more attention to the consumer perception around the Nook instead of to what I thought the Nook could be, I would have seen this coming in February. It’s a shame that I learned the lesson too late, but it’s a good one to have learned, nonetheless.

Fool contributor Andrew Marder has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Amazon.com and Apple. The Motley Fool owns shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL), and Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT).

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