The business case is simple: to sell more devices, devices that are guaranteed to have their bookstore front and centre.

As I see it, there are three types of readers:

• Those who only buy books. Preinstalled Overdrive software will not influence their purchasing decisions one way or the other.
• Those who never buy books. Preinstalled Overdrive software may encourage them to buy a Kobo since it is ready-to-go as far as library borrowing is concerned.

Yet the most important reader is:

• Those who buy some books and borrow other books. Preinstalled Overdrive software may encourage them to buy a Kobo and may encourage them to buy from the Kobo store both due to ease of access and ease of use.

On the whole, I don't think that libraries are Kobo's competition. If a person wants instant access to a book, they'll usually have to buy it. After all, their library may not have it or the holds list may be crazy. If a person want to keep a book for any period of time, they'll have to buy it. Now if you were talking about something like installing Amazon's reading software, that would be an entirely different story.


Of course, a better option would be to integrate PDF and library borrowing into their own software.