Borders intros Kobo-based e-book store
updated 09:10 am EDT, Wed July 7, 2010
Borders takes web store live following mobile apps
Borders today formally launched its eBooks store. The launch follows the early release of the iPad and iPhone apps (free, App Store) and will give Borders one of the largest online catalogs with 1.5 million titles, an unknown amount of which are public domain. The company also formally posted Android and BlackBerry versions of its mobile app.
The store uses Adobe's DRM-protected ePub format and should work on both the Kobo eReader as well as any other e-book device or container app that can import books using the standard.
Borders is one of the last traditional booksellers to fully launch an online presence and trails behind market leader Amazon, which was one of the first to go digital, as well as Barnes & Noble. The latter arrived about two years after Amazon's Kindle store but already occupies 20 percent of the American e-book market while Apple may already have a similar amount through the iPad. Borders said it was optimistic as it still sees e-books as a young category and that its detachment from the hardware business keeps it from development expenses that Amazon and Barnes & Noble have to pay. It hopes to have 17 percent of the e-book market within a year.
