Borders breaks free from Amazon.com

YES! The Amazon.com-branded Borders website is now a thing of the past!

“The decision to partner with Amazon, at the time it was made, was made I think for very good reasons,” said Kevin Ertell, the vice president for e-business at Borders. “Now the world has changed significantly. It’s right for us now to own our own e-commerce experience and to tie into stores and really connect with our customers in a way we could not do in a partnership with another company.”

I always thought the joint-venture between the two companies was retarded because I couldn’t ever look up individual store information to see whether they stocked a particular book locally (so that I could check it out before ordering).

Anyway, I think it’s good that it’s there without Amazon.com now, even if Amazon.com does beat it out in the long run.

PS: What a shame that Australian “broadband” is so slow that it can’t even display the magic shelf shown in the image above.