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Kobo CEO Says Not Selling Washing Machines Key To Overtaking Amazon
DavidGilbert99 writes "Kobo, the Canadian-based ebook company is number two in the market, behind the behemoth that is Amazon. So what does the CEO Michael Serbinis think is the one thing which will allow them to overtake the e-commerce giant? 'We don't sell any washing machines, we don't sell radios. We are not focused on the next server farm to offer data services. It is a question of focus.' Serbinis goes on to tell IBTimes UK: 'From an organization standpoint at Kobo, this is all we do. Everyone at Kobo, all we focus on is creating a great experience for book-lovers.'"
Come on, how hard is it to not implement DRM?
Maybe because they're Canadian, I found that Kobo was the only e-book reader was the only one that provided a decent, free, French dictionary. As a native English speaker reading books in French, this is a great feature. I also really like Kobo's interface. Will they be "the best"? I don't know... that's such an American obsession. Maybe they'll just be really good.
Kobo Inc is owned Rakuten...who are Rakuten you may ask. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakuten Among its numerous online properties, its flagship B2B2C e-commerce platform Rakuten Ichiba is the largest e-commerce site in Japan and among the world’s largest by sales...in case you were wondering.
Because I know you want to know http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&tl=en&u=rakuten.co.jp this is the washing machines they sell.
I won't even seriously consider them until I can read their books on my tablet and phone. I was an early adopter of eBooks, buying my first Rocket eBook reader back around 1998, so I don't have anything against dedicated devices, but there's no longer any need, and I already carry a phone and a tablet which both work great as eBook readers... and with all three of the eBook reader apps I use I can even bounce back and forth between devices, reading on my tablet when it's handy or on my phone when the tablet isn't nearby.
Probably relates to the DRM issue above... Kobo's had an iOS app for ages.
So said the buggy whip manufactures around the turn of the century.
You say things that offend me and I can deal with it. Can you?
They use Adobe's ebook DRM scheme, so I just use ePUBee to yank it out.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The problem is that they don't sell washing machines.
Amazon make enough profit in other areas of their business (eg: advertising) that they don't need to make a profit selling eBooks.
They have shared infrastructure that lowers the cost of providing their eBook service.
Even if they make a loss selling eBooks, they'll still make money from additional customers hitting their ads.
Kobo must make enough profit to pay for everything - hosting, development, HR, CEO bonuses - from selling eBooks and eBooks only. Their product is going to cost more or they will make less or even lose money.
For me the value and Amazon is almost entirely in the user reviews that's why I go there; it's what makes me keep coming back. unless you're huge like Amazon you will have that kind of feedback from users all you really have in the product description and that's it.
I now start at Amazon for pretty much all my shopping. And I buy a LOT of stuff from them. I think they have a totally correct focus.
Guns don't kill people -- people kill people.
But the guns seem to help a bit. (apologies to Eddie Izzard)
Ah but focusing *can* lead to superior results.
A lot of Amazon ebooks that are OCR scans (rather than directly made from author's digital source) are complete junk full of errors. (example: 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene) Now if their "focus" involves having human readers who *like* reading books as a hobby go through the scan and correct OCR errors by referencing the printed book, then yes I would say their focus can make them the best.
I completely agree. This to me sounds similar to the proverbial eggs in one basket. If the eBook side of amazon suddenly flops, the company will have enough sales else where to keep it afloat.
Whenever a player quits EVE to go play WoW, the Average IQ of both games increase.
They've had a kobo app for Android forever...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kobobooks.android
I don't know why I am just now seeing it. I've always disliked the name and thought it was meaningless. But then I just realized it's "booK" with the letters all mixed up.
Sure, a touch-screen is nicer than a 4-way pad for selecting menu items, but I bought an e-reader to read books, not navigate menus. This is also my beef with the Kindle Touch/Paperwhite/whatever the non low-end models are called now. The basic bog-standard kindle, I can pick it up and hold it while reading without worrying if I'm about to accidentally turn a page, change the font size, exit my book, etc.
I did briefly own Kobo's lower end model for about 2 days before returning it. That one did have buttons, but you also had to go and make a cup of tea between every page turn. Kobo no longer even sell that model, or any others with page-turn buttons.
Last I heard, AWS was Amazons largest source of profits now, having pulled ahead of the entire retail business.
It looks like Amazon is a "cloud vendor" now, with a retail business to fall back on if the cloud doesn't work out.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Hmmm... and it is working for them to beat Amazon.
Except that's just not how the market work. Focusing might sound good on the surface, but in reality it's not going to be the most successful. It might even be better for the customers that it has, but it's not going to make more money. First off, if you can buy everything from one place then you are used to and comfortable with buying stuff from that place, so a vast majority of people will buy stuff from that store. Who do you think sells more dog food in America, Petco or WalMart? Secondly, if you're a company with more revenue streams, you have more resources to develop new products, and you have more resources to hold yourself up between the time you release those products and the time you actually start making a profit off of them.
You can argue that Kobo's focusing could lead to better results in terms of user experience, but they aren't going to beat Amazon in terms of market share unless they really come up with something consumers think is unique and amazing.
Kobo has an Android app.
Forget the android app, how about Linux access?
A week or two back, after seeing the Iain Banks announcement on Slashdot, I decided it was time to buy "The Hydrogen Sonata" and went to the Kobo store to get it. I don't have Windows or Mac in the house, and use Calibre to talk to my Kobo.
I knew it would have DRM, but figured that Linux didn't have to understand it, as long as the Kobo could. But the Kobo store wouldn't even permit me to download any sort of file at all - it would ONLY work through an Adobe Digital Editions plug-in. Looking on WineHQ the current version of A.D.E. doesn't run on WINE.
Happily Kobo refunded my money, though it took a little doing. I'd rather they sell me a file that can be read on my Kobo, even if not on Linux. It would have seemed to me that the Kobo would generally appeal to the same type of people who prefer the politics of Linux - but they've cut me out of their store.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Yes. I just downloaded a Kobe book - so far, half way into it, I'm finding it a much better experience. Every. Single.Amazon.Book. that I've purchased has numerous, obvious typos. Every single Amazon book that I've purchased has crap for illustrations. They're horribly compressed like they were planning on sending them through a 300 baud modem. Trying to read a history book with crap for maps is unpleasant and unnecessary.
The illustrations in the Kobe book are pleasant, readable, zoomable. The reader is even nicer. Color me impressed so far.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
He likes Amazon's Customer Reviews.
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
You heard wrong. The estimate is that it will account for about 20% of Amazon's profit in 2013. It is growing faster than the rest of their business, though.
Except that's just not how the market work. Focusing might sound good on the surface, but in reality it's not going to be the most successful. It might even be better for the customers that it has, but it's not going to make more money. First off, if you can buy everything from one place then you are used to and comfortable with buying stuff from that place, so a vast majority of people will buy stuff from that store. Who do you think sells more dog food in America, Petco or WalMart? Secondly, if you're a company with more revenue streams, you have more resources to develop new products, and you have more resources to hold yourself up between the time you release those products and the time you actually start making a profit off of them.
You can argue that Kobo's focusing could lead to better results in terms of user experience, but they aren't going to beat Amazon in terms of market share unless they really come up with something consumers think is unique and amazing.
I'm just going to point out a few minor flaws in your argument. In Petco vs Walmart example, WalMart is still only in one industry, retail. This is considered relatively focused as far as the market is concerned. The issue with Amazon is that they've actually diversified outside of retailing such as Video Streaming, Cloud Vending, Logistics (third party sellers and Amazon then distributes), and other smaller segments. So Amazon is not focused. But on the other hand, Kobo is too focused. They only do one thing. But I totally agree with you that they need something amazing to beat Amazon since Amazon has such a head start on Kobo in the market.
So I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is a spectrum of focus. 1. Ultra-focused: Petco and Kobo, 2. Focused: Walmart, 3. Not Focused: Amazon, 4. Conglomerates: 3M, Time Warner.
Corporate Finance basically tells that Ultra-focused companies usually end up in niche positions. Companies like Walmart generally do very well. Amazon will still do OK, because their "diversified" businesses come from core capabilities required to succeed at their core business, ie logistics and excess server power. And then conglomerates generally trade at a discount in the stock market because generally the disadvantages of diversification outweighs the advantages, and individual investors can diversify themselves as opposed to having to invest in diversified companies.
That being said, I don't think Kobo will be able to beat Amazon anytime soon. After all there aren't that many David vs Goliath stories unless there is mismanagement or the "Goliath" is resting on its laurels.
I bought a Kobo eReader because I wanted to support my local bookstore and didn't want to support Amazon or Barnes and Noble. I think that their eReader is clearly third best (behind Kindle and Nook) but I'm willing to ignore that because they do have an Android app. However, Kobo uses the Adobe DRM which seems to guarantee that your library will become obsolete (maybe unreadable) in a few years. Adobe allows you to register as many as six machines (computers or eReaders) on your account and you can read your eBooks on any of these machines. If you buy a new eReader or tablet every year it will only take a few years to reach this limit. At that time you won't be able to transfer your library to a new machine. Adobe's literature implies you can deregister a machine but as nearly as I can tell doesn't actually tell you how to do it. I tried the obvious google search and found an answer (but not from Adobe). It doesn't work on my system (Windows 7/64 bit and Galaxy Note 10.1). The method also won't work if the machine you want to deregister is lost or dead. Finally, there doesn't seem to be a way to see the list of machines Adobe thinks you've registered. Thus, there is no way to tell if their list is the same as yours. (I did find a post by someone who thought he had accidentally registered the same machine several times.) Finally, what happens when Adobe decides to stop supporting its DRM or Kobo goes bankrupt? (An even bigger problem for the Nook.) I spend too much money on books to allow my library to become obsolete in a few years. I really want Kobo to succeed, but it has to be nearly as good as Amazon. I don't think it's close.
Which is kind of ironic considering their cloud vending came from their retail business. Amazon used to have tons of extra server power set aside which was just used keep the site running smoothly during the insane blitz of online shoppers during the holiday season. Of course that only lasted for a month or so out of the year so they began to lease out that extra server power during all the months it wasn't in use.
This is a myth. AWS founder addressed in in a Quora answer: http://www.quora.com/Amazon/How-and-why-did-Amazon-get-into-the-cloud-computing-business
no longer working for cnet
... which are full of fake, paid content. I stick to fiction with a better plot ... on my Kobo.
Um.... did you even bother to check? Because yes Kobo DOES have an Android app, I've got it on both my phone and my rooted Nook Color.
Yes. I just downloaded a Kobe book - so far, half way into it, I'm finding it a much better experience. Every. Single.Amazon.Book. that I've purchased has numerous, obvious typos. . . .
s/Kobe/Kobo/ ... Every.Single.Slashdot.Post ...
We need a "+1 -- nice sig" moderation.
They do have an Android app. They've had it for years.
"The issue with Amazon is that they've actually diversified outside of retailing such as Video Streaming, Cloud Vending, Logistics (third party sellers and Amazon then distributes), and other smaller segments. So Amazon is not focused"
On the other hand, you could say that Amazon has simply turned those things into commodities, in which case they are still very much focused on retail.
you know i go to amazon quite a bit, sometimes intentionally other times by accident looking at reviews. I cant remember the last time I bought something from them or from an affiliate (well, through amazon anyway im sure ive dealt with affiliates) but the reviews are great, just ignore 0 and 5 and look at 2 3 and 4 stars, decide which ones are good and which ones are FUD and go from there.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
When Amazon started out, big-box stores became a showroom: people would look at that new TV, and go buy it on Amazon.
Now, I go to Amazon to check reviews, but do most of my shopping on specialized vendors like Newegg or B&H Photo & Video. The specialized stores tend to have slightly better prices, or better selections, or better recommendations. Amazon is now my showroom for the rest of the Internet.
I tend to aim for the one star reviews and see what the major gripes are. So long as it is a major gripe that I don't anticipate running into, or at least I think that for the price it's worth the risk, then I'll go ahead and buy it.
For example I bought a cable recently, which had two single star reviews. Both were complaining that the cable was too short. The description said 4 feet. 4 feet is exactly what I wanted, so I bought it, and what do you know, I got a 4 foot cable.
Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
It's still an eInk Pearl display, though. The different resolution displays all use the same eInk screen, but they put a different resolution of magnetic grid behind it.
Having compared macro shots of my Kindle 3 and Kindle Paperwhite, I wonder if they're not getting near the limit of how much detail the Pearl display can resolve anyhow, regardless of the resolution of the magnetic grid behind it. On the Kindle 3, the pixels were very noticeably square, but by the time they hit the paperwhite they were a lot less distinct. As in, the eInk capsules are only so small, so you don't necessarily get improvements as you keep shrinking. They'd need to make the capsules smaller for that.
I could be wrong, though, the Paperwhite might not be close to the limit, but take a look at the macro shots I made:
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r27956537-
The first shot is grainier because the camera ISO was much higher. The wavyness of the second shot is not photo processing, it looks like that in real life when magnified. The font size was set to the same on both Kindles.
I think you'll find the typos are actually Amazon inserting a digital fingerprint in every copy downloaded. I noticed it a while back and checked a book against a friends device that had the same book - the typos were not in the same place.
I'm guessing the idea is that if you somehow steal a book out of Kindle / Kindle app then they'll know who did it
I don't know what tablet/phone you have, but Kobo has both Android and iPhone apps.
Of course the greatest selling point they have is that they are not Amazon. That whole employing Neo-Nazis to police their slave labour / fucking over third party sellers / software patents thing makes me want to spend as little money as possible in their store.
I also go to amazon quite a bit, but for book reviews I usually go to other sites like goodreads.com. However, for music, the sound bites usually give you a pretty good idea of whether or not you want to buy it. I've made a couple of bad purchases with that, but on the whole it works well.
I don't know about you but I like these reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Denon-AKDL1-Dedicated-Link-Cable/product-reviews/B000I1X6PM
http://www.amazon.com/Diamond-Digital-Ethernet-Connection-meters/product-reviews/B003CT2A6I?pageNumber=2
http://www.amazon.com/AudioQuest-K2-Terminated-Speaker-Cable/dp/B000J36XR2
I think you'll find the typos are actually Amazon inserting a digital fingerprint in every copy downloaded. I noticed it a while back and checked a book against a friends device that had the same book - the typos were not in the same place.
If true, then that is so grossly unprofessional, it's horrifying. Have you taken this up with Amazon? It should certainly be made public knowledge.
OK, I don't normally use Amazon for my ebook downloads (to be truthful, lately I've been using bittorrent to replace books for which I have already paid in dead-tree format, since I have recently moved home and don't want to have to think about reinforcing floors again to take the weight of bookshelves). But I have found that many retail epub files are inexcusably badly formatted. I don't consider myself a CSS guru, but I have learned enough about it over the last couple of years, since my normal practice is now to process any newly-acquired book through Sigil to get it looking presentable. This has also had the additional benefit of getting my regex skills polished better than hitherto ever been seen.;)
It's a minor PITA that the first thing I have to do is rip out the DRM, but ePUBee (which runs happily under WINE on *nix boxes) copes well with Adobe's Adept. And I have more recently discovered Apprentice Alf which offers even more info re DRM removal, apparently including a plugin (which I have not yet tried) for Calibre.