If you want e-books, you can buy them off Amazon, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Borders, then what’s next? Introducing the Google e-Bookstore, as well as an e-book reader software called Google eBooks Web Reader  that comes along with it.  It’s something we’ve been looking forward to since the initial announcement last week.  You can browse through the largest library with over 3 million titles.

“We designed Google eBooks to be open. Many devices are compatible with Google eBooks—everything from laptops to netbooks to tablets to smartphones to e-readers. With the new Google eBooks Web Reader, you can buy, store and read Google eBooks in the cloud. That means you can access your ebooks like you would messages in Gmail or photos in Picasa—using a free, password-protected Google account with unlimited ebooks storage.

In addition to a full-featured web reader, free apps for Android and Apple devices will make it possible to shop and read on the go. For many books you can select which font, font size, day/night reading mode and line spacing suits you—and pick up on the page where you left off when switching devices.

You can discover and buy new ebooks from the Google eBookstore or get them from one of our independent bookseller partners: Powell’s, Alibris and participating members of the American Booksellers Association. You can choose where to buy your ebooks like you choose where to buy your print books, and keep them all on the same bookshelf regardless of where you got them,” said Google.

You can read the ebooks on multiple platforms. There’s an Android app and approved app off iTunes store. The only place that won’t read Google-purchased titles is Amazon’s Kindle. Compared to Amazon, Google has 3 million books available in store while Amazon only has 750,000 titles including periodicals. And unlike Apple, Google has access to Random House titles which is not available at iBooks. Google is pushing both the traditional wholesale/retail model and the new agency model that Apple has been working on.

Looking at this whole thing from a bigger perspective, Google aims at competing with other e-book stores, but also to set up an ecosystem and e-commerce channel.  While you can buy e-books from Google itself, you can also buy from other eBook stores like Powell’s and Alibris — and store them in one place.

Since 2004, Google has digitized more 15 million books from 35,000 publishers, over 40 libraries and over 400 languages across more than 100 countries worldwide.