O’Reilly Media, Inc. announced today that it has acquired Pearson’s 50% interest in Safari Books Online, LLC. Safari is now a wholly owned subsidiary of O’Reilly. Developed by O’Reilly and launched as a joint venture with Pearson in 2001, Safari will continue to operate as an independent entity offering more than 25,000 books, videos, and courses on technology and business topics from O’Reilly, Pearson and the 200 additional publishers and imprints now on the platform.
“I’m delighted that Safari is now once again a wholly owned O’Reilly company,” said Tim O’Reilly, founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media. “In our thirteen-year joint venture with Pearson, it has grown into the rich content platform I envisioned back in 2000, when O’Reilly created a groundbreaking but rudimentary service to bring books online. Pearson joining with us was key to our goal of making this a multi-publisher initiative.”
“In today’s technology and business environment, you keep learning or you’re left behind,” said Laura Baldwin, O’Reilly’s President. “Safari already offers an incredibly rich information and learning platform for professionals. As sole owners, we will focus on bringing even more to that platform by leveraging O’Reilly’s brand, online content technologies, network of talented technologists, editorial expertise, and training products.”
“Pearson and O’Reilly Media share the common belief that learning happens in a wide variety of ways, and that our job is to give the learner what he or she wants, when and how he or she wants it”, said Paul Boger, Vice President & Publisher for Pearson Technology Group. “By partnering we could provide a better service to technical learners than either of our companies could do separately. We have been proven right on both counts, and, today, Safari Books Online is recognized as a best-of-class platform. We, at Pearson, are proud of our role in making Safari a success, and look forward to continuing this important work with Safari and O’Reilly Media for many years to come.”
“For more than a decade, Safari has helped bring the knowledge from leading publishers to millions of people at many of the world’s most innovative companies,” said Andrew Savikas, CEO at Safari. “Deepening our relationship with O’Reilly gives us the chance to do even more to connect people and organizations with the content and experts to help them do exceptional work.”
All current Safari content and services, from over 200 publishers and imprints, will continue to be available at safaribooksonline.com.
Also see Tim O’Reilly’s post about the acquisition, on the O’Reilly Radar blog: http://oreilly.com/go/oreillyonsafari
Andrew Savikas’s post on the Safari blog: http://oreilly.com/go/savikas