Kobo announced today in a press release that they are going be taking over for Deutsche Telekom as a new partner for the tolino alliance.
The tolino alliance is a digital reading platform backed by a collaboration of book retailers across Germany.
In addition to Germany, tolino is also available in Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands.
The switch from Telekom to Kobo doesn’t alter any current services for tolino, so customers don’t have to worry about any upcoming changes.
The tolino brand is going to be retained in German-speaking countries.
Kobo has developed a reputation of absorbing failed ebook stores, and they purchased Overdrive’s ebook business in 2015, and now they’re buying out Telekom to become a new partner with the tolino alliance.
via: Kobo
…which is less of a good thing than a bad thing.
The Tolino Alliance model in itself was sensible already, bringing brick & mortar booksellers together into a common market where none of them would have survived alone, especially with Amazon around. D-Telekom as tech partner was not bad either, keeping the technology in the country.
The devices weren’t bad either, basic to high-end ereaders in a boring design, with an easily rootable Android 4. But that was it – pretty much a B&N/Nook-scenario with limited perspectives for growth.
Now Kobo’s on board, those perspectives might look differently – more attractive devices, more international connections, but probably also more muscle behind the technology. No more Android. Less “made in Germany”. We will see.