Berlin – 26 November 2010 - txtr, the Berlin based leading provider of eReading solutions and bol.com, the largest online shop in the Netherlands, have teamed up to accelerate the booming Dutch eBook market. From the middle of November every Samsung Galaxy tablet and smartphone sold by bol.com will feature a preinstalled eBook bol.com store powered by txtr. Vodafone complements the offer with a monthly subscription to data connectivity. Bol.com also offers in the same store a downloadable app to any android or iPhone/iPad user.
“The Dutch eBook market is ahead of most other European countries. Already more than 1500 eBooks are downloaded per day in The Netherlands. This deal will enable bol.com to offer consumers easy mobile access to their eBook offering of 5.000 Dutch and 130.000 English titles. I believe that the market opportunities will depend on making the best content offering available to the consumer across a variety of different devices,” says Christophe Maire, CEO of txtr. He adds: “txtr now offers eReading content from most of the European countries. This unique position allows our device partners to enter all these countries with just one partner and one solution.”
Daniel Ropers, CEO of bol.com, adds: "txtr has a great eReading solution for a number of devices. On top of this, txtr gives online retailers the best solution to put their own eBook store quickly and easily on every mobile device. The connection to the txtr back-end eReading platform was fast and effortless. These were two important reasons why we choose to power Samsung Galaxy tablets and smartphones with the txtr app. We have signed the deal in order to keep our leading position and to compete in this exciting new, but fast growing market.”
The ‘txtr multi-device’ solution is perfectly tailored to the needs of online retailers and mobile device manufacturers, as it supports multiple platforms and devices to discover, buy, read and share eBooks. These platforms include Apple iOS devices, Android devices, PCs, web and dedicated e-Ink based eReaders. txtr is the leading European provider of technology in the ePublishing field and the company supports digital reading with a fully embedded Adobe DRM (Digital Rights Management) system.
The device agnostic, ‘buy once – read anywhere’ (up to 6 different devices), approach from txtr takes a further step with the support of the Android format of the Samsung devices. Android is now a serious contender to the Apple iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. The app does work on other Android based devices. Every customer can now easily buy an eBook via bol.com with his smartphone or tablet. They are just a fingertip away from the constantly growing number of eBooks in the Dutch and English languages. Some industry analysts even predict that 50% of all books will be sold online in The Netherlands by 2015.
txtr is a global partner for companies who want to enter and compete for a share of the fast growing digital reading market. The young innovative company has already forged partnerships in several European countries and the Far East with its B2B ‘white label’ value proposition. Its target customers are mostly online retailers, publishing companies, device manufacturers (smartphones, note/netbooks, tablets and eReaders) and increasingly operators.
About txtr
txtr, founded in 2008, is a dynamic technology company from Berlin with an international management team. Among its founders are Christophe Maire and Andreas Steinhauser, who previously founded gate5 AG, a software company renowned for its navigation and route planning solutions. Nokia acquired gate 5 in 2006.
txtr stands for connected reading. The company covers all aspects of electronic reading. txtr has partnered with mobile operators, publishing and media companies in building a tailored infrastructure for the delivery of electronic books and newspapers on mobile devices of almost any kind. txtr does not believe in the end of the printed book, but in a world of extended reading possibilities—built by people that love books.
About bol.com
Bol.com in the Netherlands was founded in 1999. Online media store bol.com serves over 2.7 million customers, which makes it market leader in the online selling of media products and the largest online media shop of the Netherlands. The store boasts over 3.8 million products. In 2009 revenues reached 268 million euros, rendering a growth of 20 percent compared to 2008.
For more information: Mike van Thiel
Tel. mobiel +31 652 69 20 69
Mike.van.thiel@txtr.com