Books24x7.com Signs Digital Press, Prima, Nolo and Waveside to Growing List Of Content Partners

Business Wire, Sept 20, 1999

NORWOOD, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 20, 1999--

-- Broad Industry Support Establishes Books24x7.com

As Web's Leading IT Information Service --

Books24x7.com, the Web's foremost authority for technical reference content, announced today that it has added four new technical publishers to its growing roster of premier content providers. Digital Press, a division of Reed Elsevier, Inc. (NYSE: ENL and RUK), Prima Publishing (www.primapublishing.com), Nolo Press (www.nolo.com), and Waveside Publishing (www.sayican.com) have signed agreements to provide the full electronic text of their best programming and technical computing books for access within the Books24x7.com service.

Now available in live controlled release, Books24x7.com (www.books24x7.com) enables IT professionals to retrieve answers to their most specific technical questions and problems, as well as assist them in learning new applications and technologies. With this announcement, twelve of the industry's top publishers have now partnered with Books24x7.com to license their full book content online, further solidifying the Company's position as the established leader in the deployment of high quality digital book content.

"We are pleased to be able to broaden our offerings with the addition of these top publishers," said Christopher Pooley, president and CEO of Books24x7.com. "The specific expertise that can be retrieved from the Books24x7.com service will assist IT professionals worldwide in addressing the mission-critical challenges they face every day."

As part of Reed Elsevier, Inc., Woburn, Massachusetts-based Digital Press brings to Books24x7.com content from one of the world's leading publishing organizations that specializes in scientific, professional, and business information.

"The quality of digital content delivered by Books24x7.com is unparalleled," said Phil Sutherland, Publisher of Digital Press. "We especially value the continuous brand reinforcement provided by the service whenever our content is displayed to the user. Books24x7.com provides the strategic online reach we are looking for."

Among other books, Prima Publishing, based in Rocklin, California, will license its world-class series of technical reference manuals on administering SAP (NYSE: SAP) application environments. SAP's complex enterprise resource planning applications are relied upon by thousands of corporations worldwide.

Stacy Hiquet, Publisher for Prima Publishing's Prima Tech division, commented, "We have selected Books24x7.com as a partner because of their publisher-friendly business model, strong searching technology and market- leading capabilities for creating rich digital equivalents of high-end technical books."

Nolo Press is renowned for its do-it-yourself books addressing legal issues. Titles from the Nolo catalogue that will be featured in the Books24x7.com service include books for developers on protecting technology copyrights, trademarks and patents. Waveside Publishing is a leading publisher of titles for Dragon Systems' digital speech products. Both companies are headquartered in Berkeley, California.

Christopher Pooley, President and CEO of Books24x7.com, will be speaking on "Lessons in content Aggregation: How Publishers Can Profit from the Next Millennium's Most Important Trend in eBook Publishing" at Electronic Book '99 on September 21st in Gaithersburg, MD.

About Books24x7.com

Books24x7.com, based in Norwood, MA, is a leading aggregator of branded, high-value, business-to-business content offered on a subscription basis over the Web. The Company is recognized as a leading electronic publishing partner to the computer book publishing industry, including Macmillan Computer Publishing (Que and Sams), MIT Press, O'Reilly & Associates, Osborne/McGraw-Hill, Sybex, and Wiley Computer Publishing among others. The Company is venture backed and its investors include Sigma Partners, Commonwealth Capital Ventures, Whitman Capital and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). For more information, visit www.books24x7.com.