AfterDawn: News

Borders will not build e-reader

Large book retailer Borders has confirmed this week that the chain does not intend to build and sell their own e-reader, despite rivals Amazon and Barnes & Nobles seeing strong demand for their e-reader devices, the Kindle and the Nook.

CEO Ron Marshall added: "I don't anticipate us doing our own e-reader for a whole variety of reasons, not least of which is that we're not a technology company. We're booksellers."



Instead, the retailer will partner with the new Kobo e-book service, and make its book collection and content available to as many e-readers as it can. Kobo is set to launch in March, and Borders owns a 20 percent stake in the venture.

The e-book service should include a library of two million purchasable books, 1.8 million free books, and subscriptions for newspapers and magazine. Kobo will be compatible with the Nook, Sony Readers, iPhones, Android devices and BlackBerrys. Notably absent from the list is the Kindle.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 25 Dec 2009 22:00

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• 2 comments

• av_verbal

  who wants some drm'ed thing that you cannot pass the books on to a library once finished with.
  
  i think i'll stick with a paper thing that i can sell or give away or swap at my convenience.

  26.12.2009 11:05 #1

• KillerBug

  Originally posted by av_verbal: who wants some drm'ed thing that you cannot pass the books on to a library once finished with.
  
  i think i'll stick with a paper thing that i can sell or give away or swap at my convenience.I guess you have not looked very closely at the nook, or the DRM crack for the Kindle?
  
  I guess this means that Borders will be going out of business soon...if their management thinks that they are going to remain booksellers without becoming a technology company, then they will drive the company into the ground hard.

  29.12.2009 00:48 #2