More Borders ... from Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal's Jeff Trachtenberg has a good piece on WSJ.com:

"Borders is late, but not too late, because this is an emerging market. As a publisher, this is one more outlet for us,' says Jane Friedman, chief executive of Open Road Integrated Media LLC, an e-book publisher. "It's going to mean more choice for readers, and an opportunity for Borders to build loyalty with their customers."

Borders' e-bookstore faces plenty of competition. Fans of digital books have lots of retail options, including Amazon.com Inc., Barnes & Noble Inc., Sony Corp. and Apple Inc. Google Inc. is expected to enter the market later this year.

In an indication of how fast the e-book market is growing, Lagardere SCA's Hachette Book Group earlier this week said that it has sold more than one million e-books written by James Patterson, the best-selling author.

Borders says, ambitiously, that it hopes to control about 17% of the e-book market by July 2011. Albert Greco, a book industry researcher, estimates that in 2009 Borders had a 10% retail share of books overall. ...

My skepticism remains intact.