Boston, MA--O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. and the Pearson Technology Group (PTG), a division of Pearson plc, (NYSE: PSO) today announced a joint venture to launch a new online information retrieval service for the enterprise IT market. The venture's flagship service, Safari Tech Books Online, is a comprehensive information retrieval service where enterprise IT departments can access trusted content to pinpoint answers to time-critical issues.
"Developers and system administrators constantly turn to the Web and IT books for information during their work day. We designed Safari Tech Books Online as a tool to help them get quick online access to a deep pool of technical information," said Tim O'Reilly, CEO of O'Reilly & Associates. "It's a comprehensive, search-driven information interface. You might say it's the LexisNexis of the IT world."
Using the Safari Tech Books Online service, a programmer working on a tight deadline with an urgent question about Java Beans can type in "Java Beans" and get a list of all of the Java Beans references in the Safari service, ranked from most relevant to least relevant. The user can then peruse the full text of relevant titles, chapters and sections. The service also allows users to bookmark, annotate and cut and paste code directly, saving time and virtually eliminating the chance of typographical errors.
"IT professionals learn from print books. However, answers to urgent issues often come from non-book sources such as chat rooms, user groups and conversations with colleagues," said Ray Henderson, president of Pearson's InformIT.com division. "These sources aren't necessarily timely, nor are they always the most reliable. Safari Tech Books Online gives users immediate access to information about very specific IT questions -- from the authors and publishers they trust the most."
More than 600 leading IT titles are scheduled to be up on the site by year end, with new titles being offered in conjunction with, or sometimes in advance of, their print publication date. The Safari Tech Books Online service includes content from leading publishers including Addison Wesley Professional, Adobe Press, New Riders, O'Reilly & Associates, PeachPit Press, Prentice Hall PTR, Que, and Sams.
With the Safari service, organizations only pay for what they use. Upon subscribing to Safari Tech Books Online, an enterprise or department selects titles to populate a custom library. Safari's unique swapping feature lets the enterprise or department exchange books monthly as their needs change or as new titles are added to the service. If a systems operations group is focused on a Linux issue one month, their department library can be populated with Linux titles. Next month they might be focused on a Windows XP issue, so they can choose to swap out Linux and add in Windows XP titles. No matter which books are in the user's subscription, Safari Tech Books Online offers full-text search capabilities for all of the books in the service.
The joint venture, in which Pearson and O'Reilly are equal owners, will sell its flagship service, Safari Tech Books Online, to corporations, libraries and universities through each of their respective direct sales forces. In each case, the Safari enterprise service can be integrated into the enterprise Intranet through a co-branded interface. The Safari Tech Books Online service is also available as a co-branded service for community sites and portals.
Safari currently offers enterprise level IT departments a complimentary trial to the service for up to ten users. Individual IT professionals interested in trying the service, can access Safari Tech Books Online for just $9.99 per month through two leading IT sites: O'Reilly (http://safari.oreilly.com) and Pearson's IT portal, InformIT (http://safari.informit.com). The Safari service for individual users has been available at safari.oreilly.com since February 1, 2001 and currently has more than 1,500 individual users.
For more information, access the Safari FAQ page by visiting either of the following sites:
http://safari.informit.com/mainhlp.asp?help=faqor
http://safari.oreilly.com/tablhlp.asp?help
About Safarism Books Online
Safari Books Online is a joint venture between the industry's leading IT publishers O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. and the Pearson Technology Group (PTG). Safari's flagship service, Safari Tech Books Online, is a comprehensive online information retrieval service for enterprise-level IT departments. The service enables enterprises, information portals, libraries, and universities to offer Web-based access to an exclusive collection of highly-acclaimed reference content from industry-leading technical publishers: Addison Wesley Professional, Adobe Press, New Riders, O'Reilly & Associates, PeachPit Press, Prentice Hall PTR, Que, and Sams. For more information call Safari Books Online at (617) 848-7025 or visit the company's Web site.
About Pearson plc
Pearson plc (NYSE: PSO) is an international media company. Its major business operations are: The Financial Times Group, which has an international network of business and financial newspapers and online services that are read by millions of business executives and investors every day; Pearson Education, the world's leading education business, which helps teachers teach and students learn at every stage and in every part of the world; Penguin Putnam, which is one of the pre-eminent names in consumer publishing, with an unrivalled range of fiction and non-fiction, bestsellers, and classic titles; and Recoletos, one of the top media companies in Spain. Pearson also owns a 22% stake in the RTL Group, Europe's leading integrated broadcasting and communications group. For more information go to www.pearson.com.
For more information contact:
Holly Nuss
McLean Public Relations
Tel: (650) 685-3850 ext 105
Email: holly_nuss@mcleanpr.com
About O’Reilly
For over 40 years, O’Reilly has provided technology and business training, knowledge, and insight to help companies succeed. Our unique network of experts and innovators share their knowledge and expertise through the company’s SaaS-based training and learning platform. O’Reilly delivers highly topical and comprehensive technology and business learning solutions to millions of users across enterprise, consumer, and university channels. For more information, visit www.oreilly.com.