David Zax, Technology Review
A Goliath has now become a David. Gigantism, it turns out, is relative. It wasn’t so long ago that Barnes & Noble was considered a Goliath, some sort of massive, heartless chain that was squashing the quaint neighborhood independent bookstores–legions of squirming Davids fumbling hopelessly for their slingshots–under its massive foot. My, how times have changed. Barnes & Noble’s CEO, William J. Lynch Jr., is the subject of a recent profile in the Times, and you might be surprised to hear the language used to describe him: “he is playing David to Mr. Bezos’s Goliath,” writes Julie Bosman. B&N’s stock is about $12, its value in the hundreds of millions. The stock price of Jeff Bezos’s company, Amazon, is around $195. Its value? $88 billion. Among the revelations in the Times piece is that a fifth e-reading device, presumably some iteration of the Nook, is to be released this spring:
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/helloworld/27540/
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