Safari® Books Online (www.safaribooksonline.com), the leading on-demand digital library for technology, digital media and business professionals, today announced it has acquired Massachusetts-based Threepress Consulting Inc, makers of the Ibis Reader online EPUB reading system. The acquisition, which was completed on January 1, 2012, further enhances Safari Books Online's capability to deliver customized subscription learning content online.

As part of the acquisition, Threepress co-founders Liza Daly and Keith Fahlgren and the rest of the Threepress staff will join the Safari Books Online engineering team, working from their East Coast and Bay Area locations. Daly will become the VP of Engineering while Fahlgren will assume the role of Director of Engineering.

Threepress' technology expertise -- including EPUB tools, HTML5, CSS, JavaScript technology and digital publishing methodologies -- will support Safari Books Online’s efforts to constantly improve browser-based and mobile delivery of a large digital library of book, video and learning content.

"This acquisition is a critical step in support of all three of Safari Books Online's key strategic initiatives: growing and strengthening our base business; developing new products and new markets; and developing truly new ways of learning online," explained Andrew Savikas, CEO, Safari Books Online. "The Web is a very different (and much more mobile!) place than it was more than 10 years ago when Safari Books Online opened its virtual doors. These phenomenal additions to our team will help us make sure Safari Books Online will continue to be at the forefront of online reading and learning for the next 10 years and beyond."

Liza Daly

Ms. Daly has had a long and successful record of providing strategy and software for publishers, authors and vendors, working in both the web and publishing industries. In 2008, she developed Bookworm, one of the first open source EPUB readers, and in February of 2010 released Ibis Reader™, the first HTML5 ebook platform. Liza is on the Board of Directors for the International Digital Publishing Forum.

Keith Fahlgren

Keith Fahlgren has deep experience in publishing technology, particularly in the area of digital content readability. Keith played a lead role in integrating Ibis Reader with existing platforms and helping publishers create digital content more effectively. His varied contributions to the digital publishing ecosystem include a number of open-source EPUB tools. Keith has spoken widely, was the co-founder of Ibis Reader, and was formerly at O'Reilly Media, where he helped design and implement many of their digital publishing workflows.

About Safari Books Online

Safari Books Online (www.safaribooksonline.com) is an on-demand digital library that delivers expert content in both book and video form from the world’s leading authors in technology and business. Technology professionals, software developers, web designers, and business and creative professionals use Safari Books Online as their primary resource for research, problem solving, learning and certification training.

Safari Books Online offers a range of product mixes and pricing programs for organizations, government agencies and individuals. Subscribers have access to thousands of books, training videos and prepublication manuscripts in one fully searchable database from publishers like O’Reilly Media, Prentice Hall Professional, Addison-Wesley Professional, Microsoft Press, Sams, Que, Peachpit Press, Focal Press, Cisco Press, John Wiley & Sons, Syngress, Morgan Kaufmann, IBM Redbooks, Packt, Adobe Press, FT Press, Apress, Manning, New Riders, McGraw-Hill, Jones & Bartlett, Course Technology and dozens more. For more information about Safari Books Online, please visit us online.

Contacts

Safari Books Online
Rose St. Clair » (707) 827.4100
rstclair@safaribooksonline.com
or
Rocket Science
Rich Mullikin » (415) 464.8110 x 216
rich@rocketscience.com