biot

February 12, 2011 at 9:19am

The Kno business model appears based on the assumption that students only buy new texts at full list prices. I was an eng student for 6 years and I never bought a text at list price, let alone bring one to class. Let's take an example. Kno lists the 10th edition of the J. P. Holman text on heat transfer at $144 (marked down from $200 list). But - you can buy this text for $31 at Abebooks from International sellers. I can find a much cheaper price for all the science titles that Kno lists; in fact, even at prices cheaper than their rental prices! Take another example, the 2010 edition of Frank White's Fluid Mechanics. Kno sells it for $134.78 ("marked down" from a list of $187), but you can buy it from half.com for $100. Kno rents it for $104.83. And if you go to earlier editions, often justified given the lack of difference between editions, book cost reduces to little more than the cost of shipping. So the Kno tablet takes away all of the pricing leverage that you get from having multiple sourcing options, ironically winds up costing you more, and even leaves you with the inability to recapture cost through resale. When you couple that with the fact that you have a 5.6 lb tablet with client only USB, no local storage, and no ability to run spreadsheet, database, word or math apps (let alone anything else) you are now in the wicked position of having to spend not only more on books but more on a second computer to run the apps you cannot run on the Kno tab. The Kno tablet also presents some security concerns since the crown jewels - text + notes - are all in one place. When you can buy a Lenovo X201 tablet at 3.5 lbs with an i7 running MS Journal or OneNote at refurb prices < $1k direct from Lenovo, the Kno tablet makes no sense. And there are other tablet options in the queue, like the Asus EP121 with a 12 inch screen, an i7 + ssd and 2 usb. Also the Asus EA800, a wacom enabled tablet at < $300, looks interesting for class notes that you can sync with Evernote. And that's just the tip of the coming tablet tsunami. The bottom line is that the Kno tab is a heavy hardware solution with no local storage, no apps, and no juice - one that requires a second pc to fill in the gaping productivity holes - and one that ironically forces you to buy books at greater costs than you otherwise would - which is contrary to the whole point of the model. So who were the VCs who backed this woof? I've got a bridge.