Thursday, October 25, 2012

Waterstones and Amazon's Kindle turn a new chapter





Leo Kelion talks to Waterstones's managing director James Daunt about his company's relationship with Amazon

It was the twist no-one saw coming.
After previously describing Amazon as "a ruthless, money-making devil", Waterstones's managing director, James Daunt, announced in May that he was teaming up with the US internet store and would sell and promote its Kindle tablets and e-readers in the UK's premier book chain.
Few predicted a happy ending: "A deal for destruction", "Strange bedfellows", and "Waterstones let the fox into the chicken run" exclaimed some of the resulting headlines.
Had the former JP Morgan banker doomed the group less than a year after being appointed as its managing director?
"A world that is totally dominated by Amazon will be a poorer one," Mr Daunt tells the BBC when asked about the decision.

Jeff Bezos and Kindle Paperwhite e-reader Amazon's boss, Jeff Bezos, says his firm sells Kindle e-readers and tablets for break-even prices
"But that is not to say that I don't think that Amazon is - within the limits of what it does - absolutely fantastic."
Secret deal The 49-year-old has already distanced Waterstones from its roots, dropping the apostrophe in its name to the dismay of punctuation campaigners. But the decision to ditch Sony's e-readers and promote Amazon's is clearly his most controversial to date.

For someone who has apparently signed his company's death warrant he appears focused and optimistic about the group's future, determined to complete a costly refit programme designed to upgrade its 300 stores.

And though he remains tight-lipped about the terms of the Amazon arrangement, he insists the agreement is to his advantage, whatever others suggest.

More at BBC

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