In a press release on thebookseller.com, Borders UK have announced the release of their own ePub eBook reader, in an effort to compete with the Waterstones/Sony partnership.
According to the article this reader has been specially developed for Borders, although it gives no details on exactly what the specifications are. All I know is that it is an E-Ink device that readers EPUB and “Adobe formats” (presumably PDF). As it has been released to work with the 45,000+ titles available at borders.co.uk, it must also be able to read the Adobe DRM protection.
At the moment it seems exclusively for in-store release as there is no mention at all on their website.
It’s great to see some comptetition for the Sony and of course more choice for the consumer. If I find out anything else about it I’ll let you know.
Anything using the Adobe SDK to display ADEPT DRMed books is going to be using the same renderer with same features as the Sony Reader and the other announced Adobe-based EPUB readers. Since everyone is also using exactly the same e-ink displays manufactured by PVI, that pretty much just leaves them trying to compete on cost. I’m not expecting much innovation here until the majority of publishers agree to go without DRM.
I do agree Marshall that there’s nothing ground breaking here, even the price isn’t going to be a big tempter. Still, on the positive side, we have another EPUB eBook reader hitting the market, which has to be a good thing for the uptake of eBooks.