E-book Provider Kobo Bets on BlackBerry Playbook

Canadian e-reading service provider Kobo Inc hopes to find success riding on the back of the BlackBerry PlayBook and other tablet computers even as it continues to expand its own line up of e-readers. Kobo, a nine-month-old spinoff of Canadian book retailer Indigo Books & Music, is looking to leap ahead in the e-book market by trying to become the standard e-reading source on tablets and smartphones. Kobo said it will come preloaded on the BlackBerry PlayBook, Research In Motion's entry into the growing tablet computer market, which was introduced earlier this week. It will also be pre-installed on Samsung's new tablet, the Galaxy Tab. "Our goal overall is to make it possible for a customer to get an e-book on any device," Kobo Chief Executive Mike Serbinis told Reuters in an interview. "We believe the tablet category is a hot category and clearly Samsung, RIM are two of the leaders. The question is, who's left? You can't get preloaded on an iPad -- it's an Apple thing," he said.