Press Releases
Safari Books Online to Provide all Sun Microsystems Employees Unlimited Web Access to More Than 5,000 Technical and Business Books
Enterprise Licensing Agreement Enables all Sun Employees to Quickly Access Vetted Information from Leading Technical and Business Publishers
SEBASTOPOL, Calif., October 3, 2006 -Safari ® Books Online, a joint venture of O'Reilly Media, Inc. and Pearson Education, today announces that Sun Microsystems has licensed Safari Books Online's searchable reference library service for all Sun employees. Safari Books Online currently includes more than 5,000 books from leading technical and business publishers O'Reilly Media and Pearson Technology Group, whose many imprints include Sun Microsystems Press.
Sun Microsystems entered the licensing agreement to make the world's widest selection of searchable technical and business books available to its employees as an investment in a training and learning platform for problem solving and professional development. Sun views Safari Books Online as an essential business tool enabling its increasingly mobile workforce to access technical and business reference resources online when and wherever required.
"With Safari Books Online, Sun is providing world-class technical information services to our employee community. We have significantly expanded access to thousands of published works from noted subject matter experts," said Karie Willyerd, Sun's Chief Learning Officer. "Access to core information is essential at Sun. From an economic perspective, providing the right information on demand will save time and money in solving customer problems. From a professional development lens, this agreement helps our employees advance their knowledge and skills so they can make better informed decisions."
Sun has been a customer of Safari Books Online for three years, initially licensing the service for engineers, who benefited from the vast technical resources of Safari Books Online available any time and from anywhere to solve engineering problems and to learn new skills. Feedback on Safari Books Online from Sun's engineering community was so positive that Sun is now extending the service to all employees - anytime, anywhere.
"Feedback from the Sun technical community on the intrinsic benefit of Safari Books Online Library has been remarkable. When Sun engineering gave Safari thumbs up, Sun invested in an employee-wide access strategy. That speaks volumes to the value Sun places on its workforce," remarked Debra Woods, VP Marketing, Safari Books Online.
Sun employees are able to search and download chapters of technical and business books within a comprehensive online reference library that is fully searchable across books, with features such as the ability to cut and paste live code into real projects. Having access to a broad range of fully vetted technical and business information saves time and money by eliminating the need to research books or to perform various Internet searches and then check the resulting content for accuracy.
Sun's enterprise licensing agreement also includes access to Safari Books Online's Rough Cuts service, which features books in progress about hot topics that professionals need and can access now, rather than having to wait for several months for a book to go through editing and other processes required for formal publication.
Safari Books Online was made available to all Sun employees on Friday, September 29, and feedback has been positive: "I would describe the Safari Books Online service as absolutely essential to my job here at Sun," said a Sun engineer and user of Safari through Sun's corporate library.
