But wait! It's the Kobo!

Kepkanation has a solid piece on the Kobo, Borders' entry into the e-reader market announced by the store this week and on sale June 17.

Clearly they've tried to make a more single-function device, and I appreciate that even if the market doesn't. But its introduction echoes what a lot of Borders' decisions look like recently: Too little, too late. The Kobo shares a lot of similarities with the Kindle (black and white screen, e-Ink, the blocky white '80s-computer shape), so what took them so long? Even if they had been able to move this announcement up a few months, they could have played up the affordability angle against the iPad.

The Kobo and the Nook both have one advantage over other devices in the brick-and-mortar stores, but whether they will be able to harness it, I'm not sure. If your mother (for demographic example -- I'm sure she's very nice) has a problem with her e-reader, she would probably rather take it into Borders or Barnes & Noble to get it looked at than spend time on the phone with Amazon customer service and then have to mail her Kindle in. Same with the iPad and Apple stores, although you can't buy actual books when you're there. But I haven't heard that either store is trying that.