Kobo has been in the e-book reading industry for a while, with mobile applications and a dedicated device that, though backed by Borders, has always lagged behind the Kindles and Nooks of the world.
On Thursday, though, Kobo announced at the IFA conference in Berlin what is potentially its biggest victory yet. Kobo will be the engine behind the "Readers Hub" e-book reading app on the just-announced Galaxy Tab from Samsung.
The Kobo software will be pre-loaded on Galaxy Tabs globally, and will give customers wireless access to the entire Borders and Kobo bookstore, with over 2.2 million titles—over a million of which Kobo claims can be downloaded free. The Readers Hub syncs reading across devices, supports ePub and PDF titles, and has simple navigation through the Tab's touch screen.
The Readers Hub application is designed specifically for Android 2.2, and will also be on Samsung's Android smartphones in the future. Kobo is following a trend, executed with great success by Barnes and Noble and Amazon, of creating apps for as many platforms as possible to allow for a universally accessible reading experience.
If the Galaxy Tab is a hit, the Kobo app might help Borders become a bigger player in the e-book reading game.