Maybe this article will help:
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SciTech/20...siness-111108/
Quote:
Kobo will continue to function as a stand-alone business, with headquarters in Toronto.
"Kobo will continue its aggressive growth trajectory with Rakuten's support," said Michael Serbinis, CEO of Kobo.
Read more: http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SciTech/20...#ixzz1dJM0mPCu
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I don't think e-books and the technology for it is going anywhere, and I've read that sales of e-books is actually surpassing that of physical books. The trend seems to be favoring a tablet style of device, though, IMHO, although at the moment there are probably people out there who just want something to read books.
And so far, Kobo is quite competitive with the price of its books. I hope that trend continues as well. I shop mostly from Kobo and Sony, and usually Kobo has the best price, and I'll end up buying from others only if Kobo doesn't have the title I'm looking for.
Personally, I think Indigo/Chapters may be in a bit of trouble, and maybe this will be good for Kobo, cutting loose from what may turn out to be dead weight. It could be that this new company will put more resources into the Kobo devices to make them even better. I think the loss of the Kobo will actually be to Indigo's detriment. DH and I do own a business, we wouldn't sell off the portion of it that is making the most $. Our input costs are the highest for that portion, but the return is well worth it and far surpasses that of any other aspects of our business. Gotta spend it to make it.
The only thing that concerns me about this is that it's nice to be able to get service by Canadians. I've had someone within this country to contact when I needed help with an order, and I appreciated that. However, I think this is an exception. I don't know how this staff member's e-mail address got to this message board and I don't think this sort of help would be the norm. Normally you don't have a staff member e-mailing and phoning you outside of normal business hours either. The norm is that we call for tech support or help with an order, and we get a person from an off-shore call center on the phone, and that's the way it is with many products. I don't like it, but it happens and you just have to hope you get someone on the phone who speaks our language with some degree of fluency. Ever have to deal with Dell?
I could go on a major rant there, we're in the middle of a situation with them right now. But I won't get into that here, it would be
I didn't like this news when I first heard it, but after giving it more thought, if this company keeps on the Canadian staff they currently have, I think it just may turn out to be a good thing.