"Kobo Announces Updated Tablet, New E-Readers"

[Mrs_Often]

Originally Posted by winsomnia

Personally, I have yet to lay hands on a consumer device that has too many options (perhaps even enough options).

More options = Always welcome.

Yep that's the way I feel too.

[EldRick]

I use a Sony 950, largely because some Google guys wrote PRS+, a huge expansion of the built-in SW options, including the ability to select fonts and sizes at a granular level much like the Kobo.

[murg]

Interesting comment about the Kobo announcement about 2/3 the way down the page: http://bookseller-association.blogsp...n-and-bad.html

[meeera]

murg: Wow, I couldn't disagree with their comments more! They say:

Having announced three new devices you would think Kobo would have had a good week. However, when you step back, the week will belong to Amazon who clearly upstaged the a poorly timed announcement from Kobo. The one thing you don’t do is beat your chest and declare you are a winner when the opposition is about to wipe the smile off your face. Kobo’s offer is now an also ran and like their service they are seen as having a poor competitive offer. Rakuten need to step up their investment and focus on building a real differentiator if they have any hope of competing in the major markets. It is clear that Kobo now have a narrow media offer and devices are not going to make any difference whatever they price them at. They are competing on the wrong thing, but perhaps like other forgotten pretenders such as Sony, that’s all they have got.

Mileage obviously varies - but for me, Kobo's announcement completely took the wind out of Amazon's sails. I was after a light, decently-powered eink device with a frontlight and good font management, ideally but not necessarily one with epub and Australian library support and an upgrade in screen resolution, and Kobo delivered on every point. Which meant that after Kobo's announcement, I lost interest in Kindle's media extravaganza. And the timing meant that Kindle were the last of the Nook/Kobo/Kindle triad to bring a frontlit device to the market, undermining claims to being an innovation leader.

The only way Kindle may have been able to compete for my dollar would be the addition of physical pageturns buttons on the edges and mmmaybe audio support (this is a take or leave for me, but might have been enough for me to take a second look), but their interest in those seems to be in the toilet along with their interest in adequately servicing the Australian market.

[JD Gumby]

Originally Posted by meeera

Mileage obviously varies - but for me, Kobo's announcement completely took the wind out of Amazon's sails. I was after a light, decently-powered eink device

I'm thinking that part of the article was more about the tablet offerings, where the Kobo Arc definitely comes out a far distant second and is quite likely dead in the water in any market where the new Fire gets any sort of support for a good chunk of the non-Prime services.

[robko]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

I'm thinking that part of the article was more about the tablet offerings, where the Kobo Arc definitely comes out a far distant second and is quite likely dead in the water in any market where the new Fire gets any sort of support for a good chunk of the non-Prime services.

You could be right on that. To me Kobo is in a very strong position on the e-reader side: higher res, front light, more font size/spacing/type options, epub capable. Yes Kindle has the people that are tied into their ecosystem (or at least unwilling to free their stuff from it), but unless the device is a real dog when it actually comes out, it whips anything Sony or B&N currently have on the market and runs well with the Kindle. It will be interesting to see how it all settles out.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by robko

You could be right on that. To me Kobo is in a very strong position on the e-reader side: higher res, front light, more font size/spacing/type options, epub capable. Yes Kindle has the people that are tied into their ecosystem (or at least unwilling to free their stuff from it), but unless the device is a real dog when it actually comes out, it whips anything Sony or B&N currently have on the market and runs well with the Kindle. It will be interesting to see how it all settles out.

If Kobo developed better communication and customer service (for people who don't complain on Mobileread), I reckon they'd be very, very hard to beat.

[scrapking]

Originally Posted by JD Gumby

I'm thinking that part of the article was more about the tablet offerings, where the Kobo Arc definitely comes out a far distant second and is quite likely dead in the water in any market where the new Fire gets any sort of support for a good chunk of the non-Prime services.

I think you're both right.

Where Amazon is rolling out services tied to the Fire, it will likely do well.

Where Amazon is treating e-reader customers like second-class citizens, they will continue to have struggles.

It seems that Kobo has a better sense of what it means to run a truly global e-reader company than Amazon does. In markets where Amazon is not releasing all their products and services day-and-date with the U.S. (which is all of them), Kobo will continue to have an advantage.

The Kindle Touch was released in some secondary markets well after its U.S. launch, was launched without 3G as an option (even in Canada, where 3G options had been made available in the past), and is still not available in some countries in any flavour.

The Kindle Fire only ever came out in the U.S.

The updated version of the original Kindle Fire is coming out in only six countries (the U.S., plus all the European countries that have their own e-book stores).

The Kindle Fire HD is coming to those same 6 countries, but that still leaves large tracts of the world Fire-less. But 5 of those 6 countries are only getting the 7" Kindle Fire HD, and don't get the option of the 8.9" Fire. Only the U.S. is getting all the options.

The Kindle Paperwhite does not appear to be launching anywhere outside the U.S., at least initially. To add insult to injury, countries like Canada that do not have their own e-book store (like the UK does) have to use the U.S. store, and we are constantly encouraged to order Kindle Fires and pre-order Kindle Paperwhites, only to be told things like the Kindle in question "cannot be shipped to the selected address."

Amazon ignores markets at their peril: from January 2011 to January 2012, the Canadian e-reader market exploded from 4% of the population owning them to 10% of Canadians having them. During that time Amazon's cumulative marketshare slipped to 24% in Canada, while Kobo's grew to nearly 50% of the entire market. Since those are cumulative figures, and the market expanded, the total number of people with Kindles did grow in Canada, but the lion's share of the new units went to Kobo. In fact, looking at Canada's population at each of those two times, looking at the change in cumulative marketshare, we can calculate that of the 2.1 million new e-reader owners over those 12 months that 488K (or 23%) of them got Kindles, and that 1.2 million (or 59%) of them got Kobos. So, in fact, Kindle is continuing to slowly bleed marketshare, while Kobo is consolidating the market.

One interesting thing will be to see what happens in France. Recent market research there has suggested that FNAC has managed to get Kobo's (non-cumulative) marketshare up to 50%. While the Kindle Fire HD will be launching there, by all appearances the Kindle Paperwhite will not. If e-ink e-readers continue to be popular, that still leaves the advantage to Kobo.

Hmmm... interesting. With the Nook only being sold (so far) in the U.S., and with international releases of the Kindle Paperwhite being MIA, for most of the world the Kobo Glo will be the only front-lit option. This is potentially huge for Kobo.

[TonyToews]

scrapking. Very interesting reading. I, personally, am responsible for at least three other people purchasing Kobo's. I've showed them mine and they go Nice! or Wow!

I'm looking forward to the Glo although I won't be purchasing it until I need it for a trip somewhere where I suspect I will have poor lighting. Although the Vox is good for short trips, it's just a bit heavy.

But I won't be purchasing the Arc. I want a tablet of some sort that has more features such as Bluetooth and a micro SD card slot although admittedly I seldom have used the micro SD card. Another feature that would be very nice although not mandatory is the ability to charge from a standard PC USB port. Even if it takes all night to charge what do I care. This way I'm not stuck if I forget my wall charger.

[Joy736]

I'm very tempted by the Glo. I might jump ship from Sony and buy one.