As one Canadian technology company looks to be going the way of the Dodo, another is taking on an internet giant in the fast expanding world of ebooks. Canadian BlackBerry-maker RIM is not having the best of times at the moment, but one bright light for the Canadian technology landscape comes in the form of the Toronto-based Kobo Books, which believes it and Amazon are in a two-horse race in the ebooks and erader market. While Kobo Books is no longer strictly Canadian, having been bought out by Japanese ecommerce firm Rakuten for US$325m (£204m) earlier this year, it retains a strong Canadian identity and its headquarters remain in Toronto. We spoke to Todd Humphreys, executive vice president of business development at Kobo, while he was visiting the London Book Fair this week. The Kobo stand is in the Digital Zone, which has grown exponentially in the last few years as the digital publishing revolution has taken off. While Humphreys doesn't think physical books are going to disappear any time soon, he does see the split between traditional printed books and digital books moving to around 50/50, calling it a "tectonic shift" in the way the publishing world works. "The book market continues to grow and we think that digital adds to the overall book share but the percentage shifts more towards digital being a larger [share]." Asda recently cut the price of the Kobo Wireless e-Reader to under £50 in the latest promotional push for Kobo ereaders but Humphreys says there is more to Kobo's strategy than simply undercutting the competition on cost: "I think there are companies that have come out with low cost readers, low cost tablets in this market place. The reason they don't succeed in this marketplace is you really need to have a couple of different pillars. "Source: Beattie's Book Blog
