Travel Technology - B&N NOOKcolor outside the US - any impact now Microsoft is on board?

I have a Barnes & Noble NOOKcolor e-reader. Living outside the US, I feel abandoned. It's possible to order material online when outside the US, but B&N don't trust those pesky non-US credit cards. :(

I was going to ask FTers how I could use the NOOKcolor wifi to check e-mail (yup, one reason I bought it) when I noticed an intersting news item in the Financial Times.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6abec8d6-92b7-11e1-9e0a-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1tkdmtwOZMicrosoft muscles in on ebooks

Microsoft is challenging Amazon and Apple in the fast-growing ebook market with a $300m investment in a new Barnes & Noble subsidiary that will give the software group its own stake in a digital bookstore for tablets, smartphones and PCs.

The deal will see Microsoft take a 17.6 per cent stake in the unnamed subsidiary, which will develop an application based on Barnes & Noble’s Nook ebook platform for its Windows 8 operating system, expected to launch later this year.
...
I'm wondering if there is any prospect that B&N will recognise parts of the world beyond the East River and whether the Microsoft link will help me - probably not because the new venture refers to Windows 8 and I have Windows 7.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

I have a rooted Nook and it works great. I went the route of having it boot/root off of the SD card.

As far as your other concerns, I can't address them. I use my Kindle as my eReader and the Nook as an inexpensive Android tablet.

There may be hope for us furriners.
Microsoft deal may bring Barnes & Noble's Nook to UK
Barnes & Noble, the US bookstore chain, stoked speculation about the imminent launch of its Nooke-reader in the UK when it signed a new partnership deal yesterday with Microsoft.

...

B&N boss William Lynch said the cash would be used to fund international expansion. "Clearly we think the biggest opportunity is through this partnership in terms of growth internationally," he said.

...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/microsoft-deal-may-bring-barnes--nobles-nook-to-uk-7697771.html?origin=internalSearch

Here's more information on the downloads from CyanogenMod for the Nook Color: http://www.cyanogenmod.com/devices/nook-color. A 16GB microSD card and a little willingness to play around with the device (it took me two tries to get it to work) pays dividends. You can choose to boot either off the microSD card into the Cyanogen environment or directly into the Nook Color. I've only booted into the Nook Color once since making the modification, and I did it just to test that I could still directly get into the Color after doing the mod.

One big advantage: you can download apps for both Amazon and B&N, so you can access both bookstores off the Nook Color.

In answer to your main question, I believe that Microsoft/B&N will do everything they need to expand the market for B&N's e-readers. B&N may have woken up to the game late but not so late as to suffer the fate of the Borders book chain. Although B&N has survived, they're not out of the woods yet, and I suspect they know they need to broaden this market, including making it easier for those outside the US to use their devices.

Thanks for the advice and the link :). I am about to get busy reading through the posts there.

Also reading http://www.nookboards.com/forum/90-nook-color/