New Nook could present a wrinkle for enterprise mobility

Competing with the Apple iPad has been a fruitless endeavor for many device manufacturers during the past year and a half. Try as they may, nothing seems to capture the attention of mobile users quite like Apple's offering.

However, the recent release of the Kindle Fire and a rumored new Nook from Barnes & Noble could change all that. In the case of enterprise mobility, experts believe that the low price point for Amazon's tablet could make it a contender for companies prioritizing wireless expense management practices.

Now, the same can be said of the newest e-reader from Barnes & Noble, as its reported sub-$200 price tag could make it an attractive option for companies looking to deploy a tablet without breaking their mobility budgets.

According to a recent Computerworld report, a new Nook Color tablet would have to be priced to compete directly with Amazon's $199 Kindle Fire. Of course, to truly compete in the tablet market, especially the enterprise sector, a new offering from Barnes & Noble will have to first prove it can meet the needs of mobile users, analysts told Computerworld.

"The issue [facing Barnes & Noble] is price and availability of content, which is the key issue for all tablets going forward," Jack Gold, an analyst at J. Gold Associates, told the news provider.

Any new device released by the company, best known as a bookseller, will most likely run Google's Android mobile operating system, the direct competitor of Apple's iOS in the mobile space. Both mobile platforms have captured the attention of the enterprise sector, leading to a rapid decline for Research In Motion's BlackBerry.

It has also been rumored, according to Computerworld, that the New Nook could feature a quad-core processor, making for a device with unmatched speed for web browsing and Flash. Many other tablet-makers have so far depended on single- and dual-core processors.

But capabilities and brand awareness aside, the first concern for companies when it comes to procurement is almost always cost. Those in charge of purchasing for an organization are always looking for value, and low-cost, highly capable tablets could be just the thing they want.

Sales for Amazon's Kindle Fire have been strong by all accounts. Email marketing firm eData Source, which analyzed the purchase receipts received by about 800,000 inboxes, estimated that the tablet's first-day sales topped out at 95,000.