Newly relaunched Borders.com may be too little, too late

Borders—the book and music store—has two types of customers: brick-and-mortar shoppers, and Amazon customers. The latter is because, seven years ago, the company decided to practically merge its online store with Amazon.com because it was doing nothing but bleeding money. Borders seems to have changed its mind, however, and has relaunched its own, independent online store this week. No longer is Borders.com just another portal to Amazon—it now operates once again as one of Amazon's competitors. Related StoriesCan Borders' new "concept store" compete with online retailers? The point, apparently, is to offer a friendly online shopping experience for those customers who are used to buying from Borders' brick-and-mortar stores. Borders believes that experience differs from the one offered by Amazon, and that it can somehow take advantage of this unique niche without necessarily competing directly with its former partner. "It's not the intent that we're going to out-Amazon Amazon at what they do," Borders CEO George Jones said earlier this year, according to the Associated Press. "What we think is that we can still have a great, compelling offering." A quick run through of the site shows that it is, indeed, a web site that sells books...Ars Technica