Borders, which will begin shipping the Kobo, its e-book reader, in early July, has joined the round of price cutting going on in the e-book reader space by bundling a $20 gift card with the purchase of its $149 Kobo. Though the originally-planned price remains in effect, the gift card effectively lowers the cost to $129.
But Borders also plans to make its inventory available to other devices such as the iPhone, Android devices and the iPad. The unresolved issue is how the e-book reader ultimately will fare as a way to create and protect a content distribution business, since virtually all the leading readers are moving to application-based delivery in addition to sponsoring their own hardware.
The price cuts come only a couple of months after Apple introduced its iPad, which offers considerably more features than e-readers and starts at $499. Many analysts believe that booksellers will not compete with the iPad but will slash e-reader prices and make up the loss of money by selling more e-books.
U.S. sales of digital reading devices are projected to reach five million units this year from 2.2 million in 2009, according to the Consumer Electronics Association
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Showing posts with label Borders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Borders. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Borders Essentially Drops E-Reader Price Before Release
Gary Kim has been a communications industry analyst and journalist for more than 30 years, covering the business impact of technology. These days he especially studies changing business models and strategies.He speaks frequently at conferences and spends quite a lot of time organizing conferences and content as well.
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