Germany: A New Tech Partner for Tolino Alliance: Rakuten Kobo Acquires Ereading Ecosystem From Deutsche Telekom

From a Joint News Release:

The book retailers in the tolino alliance have a new technology partner. Rakuten Kobo Inc. from Canada, one of the world’s fastest-growing eReading service providers, will acquire the tolino technology platform from Deutsche Telekom at the end of January 2017 to become the new technology partner of the tolino alliance.
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The transaction is still pending approval from the German Federal Cartel Office.
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Deutsche Telekom looks back positively on the excellent collaboration with the book retailers. “We are proud to have contributed to tolino’s success as its technology partner. Together, we were able to make the tolino product an established name in the eReading market with its open ecosystem and tolino devices, which rank highly in many recognized tests. Having successfully developed a digital eReading ecosystem on an equal footing with strong US-based competitors, it is now the right moment for Deutsche Telekom to divest the platform business that we have built up over the last four years with substantial investment and effort. We are therefore delighted that the founding partners of tolino stand fully behind our decision to sell the tolino ecosystem to Kobo as the alliance’s new technology partner,” said Felix Wunderer, Vice President of ePublishing at Deutsche Telekom.
“Together with our partners from the German book trade, we intend to continue to enhance the tolino ecosystem for its many dedicated customers,” said Michael Tamblyn, CEO of Rakuten Kobo. “This acquisition allows us to bring Rakuten Kobo’s experience with collaborating with book retailers around the world to the tolino alliance. This is the coming together of two strong pure-play eBook platforms, and we look forward to bringing even more capability and competitiveness to the tolino offering. We look forward to working together as their technology partner to attract even more people from German-speaking countries to digital reading.”
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For both tolino and Kobo customers, the change of partner does not alter anything. They will still be customers of their tolino bookstore and be able to use the same services as before. The established tolino brand remains one of the leading eReading brands for the German-speaking region. And the customers will benefit from the usual free access to the hotspots, the tolino app and tolino cloud.
It is business-as-usual for retail booksellers of both the tolino and Rakuten Kobo ecosystems. As well as the founding partners, the tolino service continues to be available through all associated partners of the alliance such as Osiander, Mayersche Buchhandlung and the more than 1,500 book retailers that participate in tolino via the wholesaler Libri.

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