Barnes & Noble hits the UK, launches Nook Simple Touch, Glowlight and a pair of HD tablets

American bookseller Barnes and Noble is planning to broaden its horizons with a little international travel. At the same time the Kindle Fire HD makes its first tentative steps across the pond, the company behind the Nook has appointed Patrick Rouvillois to spearhead its global domination -- starting in the UK. As such, it's releasing the Nook Simple Touch, Simple Touch with Glowlight and both of its new HD tablets this holiday season to win the hearts and minds of cynical Brits. If you're a Brit (cynical or otherwise) and curious whether Jeff Bezos and chums have something to worry about (hint: most probably) then join us after the break.

As it's such a US-centric business, it's relying on partnerships to help it gain a foothold in the country. We were curious about its relationship with Sainsbury's, given that it's launching its own e-bookstore after purchasing Anobii, but Barnes & Noble hasn't investigated the possibility of cross-compatibility. It very much sees the products as separate, despite the high likelihood of them sitting side-by-side on supermarket shelves.

From a hardware perspective, you should check out our reviews of the Nook Simple Touch and its Glowlight-sporting brother, since very little has changed on its trip over from the US. However, the duo are very competitively priced, with the former retailing for £79, £30 cheaper than the Kindle Touch, and the Glowlight costing £109, with both available to pre-order from today and delivery planned for early October.

Of course, the jewel in the company's crown is its pair of Ice Cream Sandwich-running slates, designed to shame the equivalent Kindle Fires. While we've gone into greater detail about the specifics on both devices elsewhere, they feel remarkably solid despite their lightness. In a side-by-side comparison, the hardware makes Amazon's latest tablet feel stodgy and unwieldily. Before its launch, the rumors were that Barnes & Noble was cooking up a device with an "incredible display," and certainly at first blush, that's true.

When asked why Barnes & Noble didn't include a front-facing camera, Rouvillois said that it was because the Nook isn't a "communication device," although we'd have taken "to keep the costs down" as a sensible answer too. As it stands, the 7-inch Nook HD will be available in both "snow and smoke," setting you back £159 for the 8GB version or £189 for the 16GB edition. The 9-inch Nook HD+ only comes in "slate" (marketing-speak for grey) and costs £229 for the entry-level 16GB slab or £269 for the 32GB model. Customers will be able to pre-order the hardware in October, with it shipping in mid-to-late November.

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NOOK® Simple Touch and NOOK Simple Touch GlowLightTM – Best-In-Class E Ink® eReaders – Now on Sale in UK

First Time NOOK® Products Are Available to UK Customers

Starting at Only £79, NOOK eReaders Offer High-Quality Touchscreen and Top-Rated Reading Experience at an Amazing Price

Order Today From Leading UK Retailers

London, United Kingdom – September 26, 2012 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the world's largest bookseller and leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, today announced that its critically acclaimed E Ink readers – NOOK Simple Touch and NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight – are on sale for the first time in the UK, ahead of the Christmas shopping season.

Beginning today, customers in the UK can order devices hailed as the top-rated eReaders by scores of US technology reviewers and consumers alike. Starting at the low price of only £79, high quality NOOK eReaders are available today for pre-order online and in select stores across the UK. Starting in early October, customers will be able to experience NOOK first-hand in more than 1,600 top high street retailers including John Lewis, Argos, Sainsbury's, Dixons and Waitrose, and Britain's leading bookshops, Blackwell's and Foyles. The bestselling NOOK eReaders will also be available through www.nook.co.uk beginning in early October.

"Our high quality NOOK Simple Touch and NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight products pack in a lightning fast, easy to use touchscreen and access to our robust NOOK content catalogue, in an incredibly lightweight form at an amazing value," said Jamie Iannone, President of Digital Products at Barnes & Noble. "NOOK Simple Touch puts the focus on reading instead of the technology, while NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight is the first product to hit the market that is perfect for both outdoor and bedtime reading, with a built-in reading light. We're excited to give UK customers the opportunity to enjoy both of these devices, plus one of the world's largest digital bookstores with more than 2.5 million books, newspapers and magazines."

Introducing NOOK to the UK
The NOOK family of eReading products was developed by Barnes & Noble, the world's largest bookseller, with decades of bookselling and publishing expertise. NOOK is one of the fastest growing digital brands, and its growth will be further bolstered by expanding its award-winning products, software and content to the UK.

With millions of NOOKs sold to reading lovers in the US, NOOK Simple Touch and NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight are the most highly acclaimed, easiest-to-use eReaders combining an ergonomic form factor with a paper-like, glare-free readability, even in bright sunlight. NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight is the first eReader that's perfect for outdoors, with no glare even in bright sunlight, combined with a fully adjustable integrated lighting solution for nighttime reading. It's like having two devices in one! Both products are extremely lightweight, feature extra-long battery life and built-in access via Wi-Fi® to the NOOK StoreTM. NOOK Simple Touch and NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight are available for only £79 and £109, respectively.

Light, Compact and Portable
NOOK Simple Touch's easy to hold, contoured design and soft-touch back make it easy and comfortable to read, even with just one hand, for extended periods of time. The sleek and durable device is compact enough to easily fit in a jacket, pocket, handbag or backpack. Both devices are lighter than a paperback at less than 200 grams. With 2GB of storage (1GB for content, 750 MB reserved for B&N content)*, NOOK can hold up to 1,000 eBooks and more content using the expandable memory.

Easy-to-Use, Responsive Touchscreen
With a simple tap to NOOK Simple Touch's intuitive 6-inch touchscreen, it's easy to navigate, shop and read. Customers can look up words, highlight passages, adjust the font size and style or search using the on-screen keyboard that appears only when the customer needs it. The paper- like E Ink display features crisp, clear text that's great for reading anywhere, even in bright sunlight.

Brightest Innovation in Reading
NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight was designed to address E Ink readers' number-one request: the ability to read in the dark to avoid bothering a significant other. The innovative lighting technology creates a better nighttime reading experience. GlowLight shines uniformly across the display, turns on instantly and adjusts with just a touch, so customers can control the amount of light illuminating their device, whether commuting or in a dark room. Like having two eReaders in one, NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight doubles as the ideal reading device for bed and bright sunlight.

Long-Lasting Battery Life
With NOOK Simple Touch and NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight, there's no need to bring a charger on a weekend break or holiday. NOOK Simple Touch is optimised for extra-long battery life, enabling customers to read for over two months on a single charge with Wi-Fi off.** NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight offers over one month on a single charge with the light on, or over two months with GlowLight off.***

A Personalised Experience
Customers can make the NOOK experience their own, and can choose from seven font sizes and six font styles to customise their favourite reads. Organising your eBooks couldn't be easier using My Shelves: customers can group and arrange books on customised shelves, just like a
bookcase. NOOK eReaders can be personalised with preloaded screen savers, or customers can upload personal photos to make NOOK their own. NOOK also offers a complete selection of colourful, high quality accessories to fit your style.
Shop 2.5 Million Books and More

NOOK wirelessly connects via Wi-Fi to the NOOK Store, one of the world's largest digital bookstores. Whether on their device or shopping online at www.nook.co.uk this autumn, UK customers will find more than 2.5 million digital books including top-selling UK eBooks, new releases, classics and more, favourite UK newspapers and magazines, so customers can enjoy a wide variety of digital content at their fingertips. The NOOK Store also offers a large collection of titles from independent publishers and self-publishing authors through the PubItTM programme.

Customers can easily browse by department or learn what to read next by exploring NOOK ChannelsTM, a pioneering recommendation system for an unparalleled, curated discovery experience targeted to the reader's interests. UK customers can sample any NOOK BookTM for free and download content in seconds. Avid and social readers can swap books with friends through innovative LendMe® technology, which Barnes & Noble pioneered. The NOOK Store also provides top bookseller picks and other recommendations.
Customers can browse the NOOK Store online at www.nook.co.uk and on NOOK devices beginning next week and NOOK devices this month.

Free NOOK Reading Apps
Purchased NOOK content is always safe and available through NOOK® Cloud. Because NOOK Simple Touch devices use the open, most widely used EPUB format, customers can also borrow eBooks from their local library. In addition to NOOK digital content, readers easily transfer and read personal EPUB and PDF files on your device.

Availability
For just £79 and £109, the critically acclaimed NOOK Simple Touch and NOOK Simple Touch GlowLight can now be ordered in stores and online through leading participating retailers John Lewis, Argos, Sainsbury's, Dixons, Waitrose, Blackwell's and Foyles. Products will be stocked in these retailers and available to experience first-hand beginning in early October. More information is available on www.nook.co.uk, where customers will soon be able to order NOOKs and purchase digital content. NOOK order deliveries will begin in early October.
UK residents wishing to learn more about NOOK can visit www.nook.co.uk, as well as on Facebook.com/nook and Twitter.com/nook_uk.

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Barnes & Noble Launches NOOK® HD and NOOK HD+, Lightest and Highest-Resolution 7-Inch HD Tablet and World's Lightest Full HD Tablet

Incredible Reading and Entertainment Like Never Seen Before on 7- and 9-Inch Tablets
Designed for Both Personal Use and the Whole Family to Share – Like Having Multiple Devices in One

NOOK HD Offers World's Highest Resolution Display Ever on a 7-Inch Media Tablet
Starting at Only £159

NOOK HD+ is Lightest, Lowest-Priced Full HD Tablet Ever Starting at Only £229

Unbeatable Values for Top Quality Tablets and No Annoying Ads Coming to the UK This Autumn

New York, New York – September 26, 2012 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, today introduced NOOK HD and NOOK HD+, the lightest HD and full HD tablets. The super-fast and lightweight 7-inch NOOK HD and 9-inch NOOK HD+ feature must-see displays for superior reading and entertainment and an instantly personalised tablet experience for each family member. In fact, NOOK HD boasts the world's highest- resolution ever on a 7-inch tablet and NOOK HD+ rivals the industry-leading tablet's display. Starting at the low prices of £159 for NOOK HD and £229 for NOOK HD+ – nearly half the cost of the leading large-format tablet – both products deliver an amazing value for customers, with no annoying ads. With more than 2.5 million books, a large selection of magazines and apps, as well as NOOK VideoTM content
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coming this holiday, NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ offer virtually endless reading and entertainment at customers' fingertips. Pre-orders will begin in late October at leading UK retailers and at www.nook.co.uk. NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ will be available through Blackwell's, Currys, PC World, Foyles, John Lewis, Sainsbury's and Waitrose beginning in late November.

The fantastic new 7-inch NOOK HD and 9-inch NOOK HD+ are packed with favourite tablet features that the whole family will love:

A Personalised Tablet Experience For Both Individuals and Families
According to research by Barnes & Noble, more than 50 percent of tablet owners share their devices with others in their families every day. Half also say they would never let their child handle their device unattended. Not surprising, given that more than a third of tablet owners report having content on their devices they don't want anyone else to see. NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ are designed explicitly to provide a personalised experience for individuals and their family members, allowing children to freely enjoy all the content they love without happening upon all that parents would rather they didn't see. NOOK ProfilesTM instantly transform the device in hand to any family member's very own tablet. With a quick tap on a profile at the top of the screen, the entire experience magically changes into that family member's personal tablet as their own content – and personalised recommendations – appears on the display. Now mum's NOOK becomes Jack's NOOK, becomes dad's NOOK and so on. In a blink, one device is like four, or five, or six. Adults can use their personal passwords to easily access their books, magazines, videos, apps and more. Children can dive into their collection of digital picture books, learning apps, and kid-friendly videos, while tweens and teens can access their chapter books, magazines, games and favourite TV shows. Enhanced controls with simple settings and password features empower parents to easily manage their children's access to the web, content and shopping.

Must-Have Tablet Features
The new NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ are optimised to deliver unparalleled experiences in the areas that company research showed NOOK tablet owners use most: reading, Web, video and email. The reading experience is unmatched, offering beautifully rendered text, magazines in spectacular HD and lightning fast page turns. Thanks to top-end processors, the newly designed Web browser in NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ is super-fast, making it simple and smooth to surf favourite sites with a tap, pinch and zoom. Integrated into the Web browser, ArticleViewTM allows you to customise your online reading experience. Both NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ will offer access to a collection of popular movies and TV shows through new NOOK Video coming to the UK this holiday. And an all-new built-in email app offers new features in an easy-to-use, clean format that supports a host of popular personal and work- related email services including Microsoft® Exchange ActiveSync.
NOOK HD – The Most Exceptional Reading and Entertainment Experience in a 7-Inch Tablet
Best 7-Inch Display: NOOK HD includes a newly invented, brilliant display that delivers the highest quality text, graphics and video experience in a 7-inch media tablet. Packed with pixels, every book read, every movie watched, every game played is rendered in a digital quality never before seen. NOOK HD offers the highest-resolution display ever on a 7-inch tablet at 1440 x 900, with an unprecedented 243 pixels per inch and HD video playback of up to 720p. It's ultra-sharp with 25 percent more pixels than Kindle Fire HD for a better overall viewing experience. Building on the highly advanced laminated displays first seen in the 7-inch category on previous NOOK LCD products, NOOK HD features the most advanced IPS display coupled with world-class optical bonding technology with no air gap to deliver low-glare and a wide viewing angle for sharing.

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Super-Light and A Joy to Hold: Weight matters, and no other leading 7-inch HD tablet is lighter than NOOK HD. By developing a breakthrough design that integrates the display into the device itself, Barnes & Noble eliminated many components to keep NOOK HD super-light, yet durable. At only 315 grams and just 127 mm wide, it's more than 20 percent lighter and one centimetre narrower than Kindle Fire HD. So, it fits the hand beautifully and is finished with soft-touch paint that makes it comfortable for even a young child to hold. NOOK HD is ergonomically contoured for comfort and slips easily into a men's suit coat, a woman's handbag or a child's backpack.

Lightning Fast: Armed with a dual-core 1.3GHz high-speed processor, NOOK HD is lightning fast, highly responsive and smooth. With its more powerful processor, it's not surprising that NOOK HD is faster than Kindle Fire HD for a nimble overall experience, and 80 percent faster when it comes to graphics processing for smoother, faster animations, renderings, apps experience and more. The 1GB of RAM allows customers to easily zip from one app to another and play movies.
More Choices: The world's most exceptional 7-inch reading and entertainment tablet is now available for pre-order in two colours, "Snow" and "Smoke." Starting at just £159 for an 8GB model and only £189 for a 16GB version – both featuring expandable microSD memory storage – customers can learn more about the devices at www.nook.co.uk and pre-order NOOK HD, as well as NOOK HD+, next month.

NOOK HD+ – The Lightest and Lowest-Priced Full HD Tablet Ever
Spectacular Full HD Display: For those who want to enjoy reading and entertainment on a larger scale, NOOK HD+ offers a must-see full HD 9-inch display with resolution of 1920 x 1280 and 256 pixels per inch for up to 1080p for movies, magazines and more. The fully laminated display reduces glare and provides excellent viewing angles, perfect for personal or shared viewing. This amazing display rivals the "resolutionary" screen of the leading high-resolution large-format tablet, but is offered in a device that's more than 20 percent less weight and nearly half the price.

Incredibly Light Yet Powerful: Weighing in at only 515 grams, NOOK HD+ is big on display, yet lightweight, easy to hold and take anywhere. It is the lightest full HD tablet ever invented. NOOK HD+ is power-packed by a 1.5GHz dual-core processor with 1GB of RAM for a fast, smooth customer experience, whether browsing the web, reading books and magazines, watching videos, enjoying apps or checking email.

Best Price Ever for Full HD Tablet: The beautifully designed NOOK HD+, offered in the colour "Slate," features expandable memory for even more storage with options of 16GB for £229 and 32GB for £269 – two astoundingly low prices for a brilliant, super-light 9-inch reading and entertainment tablet.

Both NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ will be delivered to customers and in UK stores in late November, in plenty of time for Christmas. .

"With the combination of the highest resolution screen, lightest weight and expansive access to content rendered in a digital quality never before seen, NOOK HD is the world's best 7-inch media tablet," said William J. Lynch, Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble. "We designed our larger format tablet NOOK HD+, because we think there's big demand from customers for a super-light, extremely high quality 9-inch tablet, at half the price of the iPad. Both our 7-inch NOOK HD and 9-inch NOOK HD+ deliver an exceptional customer experience and we enthusiastically encourage customers to go to nook.com and learn more about them," said William J. Lynch, Chief Executive Officer of Barnes & Noble.

Announcing Even More NOOK Content and Services to Enjoy

As part of the launch of NOOK HD and NOOK HD+, Barnes & Noble also announced significant new additions and advancements to the NOOK content ecosystem:

A Growing and Diverse Digital Catalogue: The NOOK StoreTM now offers more than 2.5 million books including bestselling books, new releases, classics and enhanced titles with special content; a large collection of best-loved English-language children's interactive picture books; comic books and graphic novels; and picture-perfect art, photography, travel guides and cookbook titles.

NOOK Video: Beginning this holiday in the UK, NOOK Video will offer customers their favourite standard and HD movies and TV shows for streaming and download to watch in spectacular colour and stunning definition on NOOK HD and NOOK HD+. Both devices are designed with an HDMI compatible port to allow customers to easily connect to their TVs to watch movies and shows in up to full 1080p.

Magazine 2.0: NOOK NewsstandTM has a large digital collection of favourite UK magazines available for both digital subscriptions and single copy sale. With NOOK HD and NOOK HD+, the industry- leading magazine experience just got even better. A new visual table of contents lets customers view thumbnails of the entire magazine and simply tap the article they want to read first. Magazines feature a super-fast, 3D-like page turn and include built-in hot spots for readers to quickly jump to specific articles and to go deeper on a subject or story through audio, video and web linking. NOOK's innovative ArticleView lets the reader focus only on the text, customised to their needs. The company also introduced a breakthrough NOOK ScrapbookTM, where magazine readers can virtually clip pages of interest and save them in customised digital scrapbooks.

Excellent Newspaper Experience: Extra! Extra! NOOK Newspapers make it easier and more fun to read newspapers digitally. Customers can view and choose each of the paper's sections on the left column to tap and read in a snap. The large selection of daily and weekly newspapers are available through subscription or single copies and are automatically downloaded via Wi-Fi® to the device when available for reading with morning coffee, on the commute home or anywhere in between.

Top Apps: NOOK AppsTM features a wide range of titles for the whole family, including the hottest games, as well as lifestyle, productivity, news, entertainment and reading apps. Customers will find a broad collection with all the most popular and bestselling top 100 app titles for tablets available anywhere. . In fact, only the NOOK Store provides helpful age recommendations for parents and lets customers browse by subject area to find the perfect app for their child among the broadest and the most curated app collection of kids' educational apps on any Android store. With games and activities focused on language, math, puzzles, reading, art and more, NOOK provides families with hours of playful learning that helps kids make the most of their "screen time."

NOOK Store - A Better Way to Shop & Find Content: NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ bring a new level of personal shopping service to the device experience. Customers can tap on the Your NOOK TodayTM icon on the home screen to reveal fresh content and personalised recommendations each day. This includes their latest newsstand subscriptions delivered virtually, plus cool apps and new titles matched to their profile.

And just like a great bookshop, the NOOK Store is a place of continuous discovery. The new store experience allows customers to easily shop by department or explore new NOOK ChannelsTM, a pioneering recommendation system that combines the unrivalled knowledge of Barnes & Noble booksellers with advanced algorithmic technology to create an unparalleled, curated browsing experience. Targeted by interest and sensibility, each NOOK Channel programs a rich stream of reading and apps – and soon movies – that includes the latest releases as well as backlist gems, bestsellers as well as offbeat treasures. Customers can browse and shop Channels that will expand their passions for the authors and subjects they love, from Paranormal Romance, War Stories, and Books to Talk About to Jane Austen & Heirs, The New Classics, History by Plot and Books Every Kid Should Know.

NOOK Cloud: All NOOK content is delivered via Wi-Fi and safely stored through NOOK Cloud, making NOOK Books, videos, apps and other content accessible across NOOK, personal computing and mobile devices using free NOOK Reading and NOOK Video apps.

Additional NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ Highlights
 Battery Life that Lasts: Both devices feature extra-long battery life optimised for extended use. NOOK HD offers up to 10.5 hours of continuous reading and up to 9.5 hours of video watching, while NOOK HD+ boasts up to 10 hours and up to 9 hours for reading and video, respectively, all with Wi-Fi off.
 Expandable Storage: In addition to generous onboard storage, NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ also feature expandable memory using a separate microSD card (up to 64GB) – another feature not offered on Amazon's tablets. NOOK gives customers an economical and flexible way to carry their personal content, PDFs, music, videos and more anywhere.
 A Better Value, Ad-Free: NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ offer brilliant displays so customers can enjoy their favourite content and personal photos, not annoying ads as with Amazon's tablets. And with low prices starting at £159 and £229 respectively, always ad-free NOOK tablets are a better value than Amazon's. For example, in the US where the product is currently available, Amazon currently charges customers an additional £9 for freedom from advertising offers on their tablet home page.
 Ready for Power: Barnes & Noble also knows that customers prefer to charge their tablets quickly with an AC adapter; every new NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ has one included at no extra cost. Amazon charges £18 for their tablets' adapters sold separately.
 Superb Sound: To deliver excellent audio, NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ are designed with customised speakers and utilise SRS TruMediaTM* to create a wide sound field, deep bass, clear vocals and strong midrange performance. Whether listening through the device's speakers, a pair of headphones or on a Bluetooth-enabled speaker, customers will enjoy a rich audio experience watching videos, listening to music, reading children's picture books or playing games.
 A NOOK of One's Own: Gallery has never been so personal with instant access to cherished memories from popular photo sharing and social networking sites. Customers can add even more photos to the Gallery from their computer or emails. NOOK becomes each family member's very own when they pick a favourite photo for the home screen and screensaver for each individual
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profile – instead of annoying ads. NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ also make it easy to share photos via
email or in person, by connecting NOOK to a TV.
 Easy to Use Interface: Both new tablets feature a beautiful "paper-like" user interface that gets
customers right into the content they want, and allows quick access into core applications: Home, Library, Shop and Web. The experience is intended to make NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ the easiest tablets on the market to use, empowering customers to take advantage of its extensive functionality and enjoy a reading experience that far surpasses that of any other tablets.
 Stay Connected More Easily: The email app on NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ lets customers stay connected with what's happening at the office through support for Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync. Customers can check business email and sync calendar and contacts, too. NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ also support email, calendar and contacts syncing for popular services like Gmail, Hotmail and Outlook.com, as well other popular POP3/IMAP email services like Yahoo!, AOL and more.
Pre-orders for NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ will begin next month for customers in the United Kingdom, as the products will be available in late November there through leading retailers and www.nook.co.uk. NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ will be offered through in more than 1,600 shops and online through Blackwell's, Currys, Dixons, Foyles, John Lewis, Sainsbury's and Waitrose.

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Barnes & Noble Names Patrick Rouvillois Vice President, Managing Director – International

New Role to Oversee the Company's International Expansion

New York, New York, and Luxembourg City, Luxembourg – September 25, 2012 – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, today announced the appointment of Patrick Rouvillois as Vice President, Managing Director – International, a new role in which he is responsible for building the NOOK® brand outside the US across the globe. Barnes & Noble recently announced its plans to offer award-winning NOOK products to customers in the UK beginning this fall. Mr. Rouvillois is based in Luxembourg and reports to Jamie Iannone, President, Barnes & Noble Digital Products.

Mr. Rouvillois joins Barnes & Noble from Carrefour, the No. 2 global retailer with 15,000 stores in 30 countries, where as Global CMO and Head of eCommerce he oversaw the growth of the Carrefour brand and eCommerce and streamlined commercial and marketing proposals across the group. Previously, he was Executive Vice President of Consumer Marketing for Orange Group, one of the world's leading telecommunications operators, responsible for consumer propositions, product marketing, pricing and commercial investment optimization. Before joining Orange, Mr. Rouvillois held positions at Vivendi Universal Net, where he managed a content aggregation portal for Vodafone and SFR. Previously, he spent six years at The Boston Consulting Group in Europe and Oceania.

"We're thrilled to have Patrick join the team as we embark on our international expansion of the NOOK brand into the UK and beyond," said Mr. Iannone. "Patrick brings strong leadership to the role, and his vast background in the retail, consulting, telecom and media sectors will be incredibly valuable."

Mr. Rouvillois holds diplomas from Paris University and from Mines ParisTech, one of the most prominent French engineering schools, where he studied mathematics, business administration and economics.