Earlier today, Business Insider reported that Barnes & Noble (B&N) had dissolved its entire Nook hardware engineering team. However, the book retailing giant has confirmed that although jobs were eliminated across the firm, the hardware division itself has not been terminated, according to TechCrunch.

Mary Ellen Keating, spokesperson for Nook, said in a statement: "We've been very clear about our focus on rationalizing the NOOK business and positioning it for future success and value creation.  As we've aligned NOOK's cost structure with business realities, staffing levels in certain areas of our organization have changed, leading to some job eliminations.  We're not going to comment specifically on those eliminations.  We believe we have a strong management team in place at NOOK, having recruited significant new talent.  The new NOOK management team is focused on managing the business efficiently so that it becomes financially strong while at the same time aggressively moving to drive revenue growth."

For a long time, the Nook business has been in a slump. The revenue of the unit plunged 32.3% year-over-year during the previous fiscal quarter. Rumors have spread that B&N mulls selling its Nook business. So far, the company appears to still be committed to the division in spite of the fact that its fortunes are going down, the report detailed.

For now, Nook remains in the e-book industry. But with other players dropping out of the game, the existence of Nook in the market remains unsure, TechCrunch reported.