If you didn’t notice our excitement in the Spring Design Alex E-Book Reader yet, you will now. Spring Design just announced that they’ll be partnering with the Borders’ eBook store for their Android-powered Alex E-Reader. This is awesome news because one of the biggest sells (and underrated aspects) for E-Readers is to have an ecosystem in place to easily get books onto the device. Having a partnership with Borders solves this for Spring Design and should absolutely get Amazon’s and Barnes & Noble’s attention. In a sense, their competitors are joining forces.
The good news doesn’t stop there. They’ll be dropping the price of the Alex E-Reader by a solid $40, bringing it down to $359. The price is still hefty, and we wished they would drop it more, but a price cut is a price cut is a price cut, right?
Press release after the jump!
FREMONT, Calif – January 7, 2010 – Spring Design and Borders Group, Inc. (NYSE: BGP) today announced an agreement in principle to feature the upcoming Borders eBook store powered by Kobo on the new dual display Alex™ eReader later this year. The agreement in principle follows a recent announcement that Borders will launch a new eBook store on Borders.com as well as Borders-branded mobile eBook applications, powered by Kobo. The new Borders-branded eBook store will offer more than two million titles.
“The combination of Borders’ leadership in the book industry and Spring Design’s innovation and experience in consumer electronics will create a world class service for eBook readers,” said Dr. Priscilla Lu, chief executive officer of Spring Design. “This partnership delivers one of the critical foundations of our business growth going forward,” Lu added.
“Our agreement with Spring Design represents another step in our digital strategy, which continues to focus on offering book lovers-including our more than 35 million Borders Rewards loyalty program members-high quality content on the device of their choosing,” said Borders Group Chief Executive Officer Ron Marshall. “We look forward to bringing a world class eBook experience to Alex users.”
The Alex eReader will initially be available February 22, 2010 for $359 in the online store at www.springdesign.com.