Toronto-based e-reader Kobo lays off 63 people

[PeterT]

From The Toronto Star

http://www.thestar.com/business/tech...63_people.html

Toronto-based e-reader Kobo lays off 63 people
Lost jobs are part of “organizational changes,” as Kobo faces increasing competition from smartphones and tablets
By: Kim Nursall Staff Reporter, Published on Thu Apr 24 2014

Toronto-based e-reader company Kobo laid off 63 people on Thursday, only a few weeks after appointing a new president, amid what it called “organizational changes.”

“To focus resources on innovation, partners, and readers, the leadership team has realigned the organization’s structure, which has also meant some staff reductions,” René d’Entremont, a Kobo public relations manager, told The Star.

“As part of this change, teams have been restructured and optimized; redeploying employees to best use their skills to support the company’s core goal of providing the best global eReading experience. All our offices will continue to operate as usual, with a mandate to grow the business in each of our territories.”

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[/I]

I think the only way they will strengthen their business is to hire programmers who can get the firmware working correctly on their readers. Otherwise they are a dead eReader company walking. I still find it amusing that Sony closed their eBookstore and turned it over to Kobo, a company on the edge of dying. No doubt Amazon is rejoicing.

[RZetlin]

It's never good news for a company to lay off its employees.

I hate to see Amazon Kindle be the only player in the ereader market.

[rollei]

That's bad news. I hope Kobo is still going strong.

[Solicitous]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I think the only way they will strengthen their business is to hire programmers who can get the firmware working correctly on their readers. Otherwise they are a dead eReader company walking. I still find it amusing that Sony closed their eBookstore and turned it over to Kobo, a company on the edge of dying. No doubt Amazon is rejoicing.

I have had this niggling feeling in the back of my mind that Kobo has slowly been losing direction. I can only talk about being here in Australia, but given the number of retail partners I still havent seen a Vox, Arc, Aura or Aura HD for sale in any store, and online some of their partners don't even show the Aura or Arc for sale. Kindles on the other hand are advertised a lot harder and in stock compred to Kobo devices.

No good when people lose their jobs but a 15+% reduction in staff.....is this a restructure or the early stages of writing on the wall?

[rdjack21]

Originally Posted by jswinden

I think the only way they will strengthen their business is to hire programmers who can get the firmware working correctly on their readers. Otherwise they are a dead eReader company walking. I still find it amusing that Sony closed their eBookstore and turned it over to Kobo, a company on the edge of dying. No doubt Amazon is rejoicing.

Could not agree more! This is the primary reason I will not purchase a reader from them. I just want the darn thing to work and hate to say it but right now that means a Kindle. But I like others don't want to see the Kindle be the only option or the only viable option out there. But it is not Amazons fault that the competition is stumbling across the board.

[issybird]

I don't like Kobo; their devices are buggy and their customer service is atrocious. But the bulk of my elibrary has been purchased from them, for reasons everyone here will know. So, if Kobo's starting to look at the bottom line, does this mean the end of contests, generous discounts, multi-use coupons and even "traveling"?

I have a list of books that was awaiting the next 75% off coupon (and one that will only be purchased with a 90% one) and another list of books that are only available offshore. When/if there's another contest, I suspect I'll jump if the deal's good. Frankly, I had thought the gravy train would have ended already and now there's some evidence that things are trending in that direction.

[ProfCrash]

I have not seen a Kobo in person in the US. I have not seen it at a store or being used. The only advertising I hear for it is on NPR which reaches a niche audience. A niche audience that probably already has e-readers and those who don't are part of the "I only read paper books" crowd. No problem with that attitude but not the best marketing. Toss in a wonky firmware and you have an e-reader that could be a competitor but is not really working all that hard at it.

[fjtorres]

Adds a bit of bite to their claims they can't survive in Canada without price-fixing; if their dominant market share and continuing price-fix regime can't keep them in business, then surely they must be protected even more, right?

As for their US operation, they might do just a wee bit better if Rakuten could be bothered to at least link them to their website and search results.

Mostly I curious to see who got pink-slipped and where and who got reassigned.
I do suspect we've seen the last Kobo tablet.
I also expect we'll be hearing of a new Kobo educational initiative any moment now...

[PeterT]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

I do suspect we've seen the last Kobo tablet.

That was my feeling too; I expect we'll see the app continue, but not the h/w platform. Maybe we should look for discounted prices on the android tablets...

[oj829]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

I have had this niggling feeling in the back of my mind that Kobo has slowly been losing direction. I can only talk about being here in Australia, but given the number of retail partners I still havent seen a Vox, Arc, Aura or Aura HD for sale in any store, and online some of their partners don't even show the Aura or Arc for sale. Kindles on the other hand are advertised a lot harder and in stock compred to Kobo devices.

In the US, the terms of hardware sales, for indie bookstores, were really, really bad. I don't know if that was the fault of Ingram, Kobo, or the ABA, but the terms gave some retailers no option but to return unsold hardware within the first, very small "no risk" window. And that was just the rollout of the Glo and mini.

Then came the Arc which was not competitively priced, and as we all know now, was a black hole of support neediness with a crashing launcher and whatnot. (I love my original Arc, and still use it several times a week, but I personally opined to an indie bookstore owner that he should not even think about selling them, given the retail terms, the glut of 7" wonders on the market, and the caprice of consumers when it comes to simple things like not proving an SDcard slot.)

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by PeterT

That was my feeling too; I expect we'll see the app continue, but not the h/w platform. Maybe we should look for discounted prices on the android tablets...

I think they'll keep at least the existing 6in Aura going.
But getting into android tablets was simply unnecessary--overreach plain and simple. The resources that went into the Arc software should've gone into the Android app.

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

I have not seen a Kobo in person in the US. I have not seen it at a store or being used. The only advertising I hear for it is on NPR which reaches a niche audience. A niche audience that probably already has e-readers and those who don't are part of the "I only read paper books" crowd. No problem with that attitude but not the best marketing. Toss in a wonky firmware and you have an e-reader that could be a competitor but is not really working all that hard at it.

Two or three years ago I bought a Kobo Touch from Borders. I heard about Kobo here on MobileRead though. I don't think I've ever heard them advertise here. The Kobo Touch was so buggy as far as firmware that I returned it. Plus I hated that darn kePub thing where they used two rendering engines: A good one for kePubs (Kobo purchased books) and a crappy one for other ePubs (purchased elsewhere). Borders started closing stores about that time and soon went under taking the biggest USA retailer for Kobo out of the picture. The store I bought my Kobo Touch at went under in less than 30 days from my purchase, so I had to hustle to return it while they still had the doors open. From what I heard, those who didn't return to Borders before they closed had a tough time returning them directly to Kobo. At any rate, to this day I've still not seen any Kobo advertising here in the USA, I only hear about them on MobileRead.

[delph]

While I have Kobo readers that I'm fond of, I buy most of my books from Amazon. I'm very leery of purchasing a book from Kobo and not knowing if I'll be able to download it until after the purchase. There's also a limit on the premium that I'm willing to pay to support Kobo. The vast majority of the books that I've checked before purchasing were more expensive on Kobo's site, usually at least $2 more and sometimes twice as much. Very few of the books I've wanted to purchase recently allow the application of coupons (maybe I'm just incredibly unlucky). I'm not going through the hassle of "traveling" when I can just go buy the book from Amazon at a reasonable price.

I've come to prefer sideloading my books anyway, since I can replace the fonts, font sizing, and line height from the publisher. That applies regardless of the source of the book. It's not an issue of 'bad formatting', just what is easiest on my eyes for extended reading.

[DrNefario]

Originally Posted by delph

Very few of the books I've wanted to purchase recently allow the application of coupons

I think that's probably the key. The only way kobo competes on price is by offering discount coupons, and if they can't be used on books from the big publishers, then where does that leave kobo?

Publishers shooting themselves in the foot again.