NetLibrary™ to Acquire peanutpress.com
Extensive eBook Collection to Become Available For Viewing on Popular Handheld Devices
BOSTON – February 9, 2000 – In an effort to foster
adoption and use of eBooks among a greater number of consumers across the Internet, NetLibrary™
(www.NetLibrary.com) has reached an agreement to acquire peanutpress.com, a pioneering distributor
of literature for reading on handheld computing devices including the Palm Computing® platform,
Handspring Visor™, and devices employing the Windows CE operating system. The announcement was made
today at the Seybold Seminars Boston 2000 event here.
NetLibrary's acquisition of peanutpress.com unites
two of the most prominent names in the eBook marketplace. Since being founded in August 1998,
NetLibrary™ has established relationships with numerous publishers to build an extensive collection
of digital titles for sale to academic, corporate, and public libraries, as well as to consumers
through the NetLibrary™ website.
peanutpress.com has approached publishers in a
fashion similar to NetLibrary™, but has pursued a consumer-direct business model, allowing eBook
enthusiasts to purchase digital titles from the peanutpress.com website and download those titles
to their handheld devices for convenient, portable reading.
"By joining forces with peanutpress.com, NetLibrary™
is making eBooks available to more people in more ways than ever before," said NetLibrary™ President
and Chief Executive Officer Timothy R. Schiewe. "Like NetLibrary™, peanutpress.com is open to providing
the written word for a variety of devices. We both understand that, when it comes to eBooks, content
matters most, and readers should have a choice about the device they use."
"We are thrilled to be a part of NetLibrary™," said
peanutpress.com President Jeff Strobel. "The technology and content offerings brought to the table
by both our companies are a perfect fit and present a great solution to eBook enthusiasts across the
Internet."
Since their establishment as eBook companies,
NetLibrary™ and peanutpress.com have taken slightly different paths in terms of content development.
NetLibrary's focus has been to serve academic library customers with a collection of reference,
scholarly, and academic titles from publishers such as Oxford University Press and Harvard Business
School Publications. peanutpress.com, on the other hand, has focused on building one of the most
extensive consumer trade eBook collections currently available on the Internet. Books by authors such
as Stephen King, Elmore Leonard, and Frank McCourt are available as peanutpress.com editions.
The companies plan to integrate features to create
a cohesive new offering that will be available to NetLibrary's customers by the end of the year.
Content acquisition specialists also plan to pool the companies' respective eBook collections.
"eBook collections at NetLibrary™ and peanutpress.com
are quite complementary, without much overlap," said Miriam Gilbert, NetLibrary™ senior director of
publisher relations. "We will work within our existing publisher relationships to obtain permission
as needed to create a very well-rounded selection of eBook editions for various platforms and
markets."
In addition to greatly increasing the number of
eBooks available for download to handheld devices, the acquisition brings peanutpress.com's flexible,
user-friendly technology to NetLibrary's existing library customers. Patrons at academic and public
libraries around the world will have the option of downloading borrowed eBooks to their handheld
devices, in addition to the PC-download option previously available through
NetLibrary™.
"Our desire to see more people adopt and become
comfortable with reading eBooks was central to our acquisition of peanutpress.com," said Schiewe.
"We believe that, by working together, we can make eBooks a natural part of the reading habits of
people around the world."
Founded in 1998 by Jeff Strobel and Mark Reichelt,
peanutpress.com is dedicated to providing secure electronic publishing, distribution, and sales of
high-quality fiction and nonfiction. peanutpress.com eBook editions can be purchased and downloaded
via the Internet to a variety of handheld computing devices.
Founded in August 1998, Boulder, Colo.-based NetLibrary#8482;
has forged relationships with more than 150 publishers of trade, reference, academic, and scholarly
books, resulting in a digital library of more than 13,000 titles and counting. NetLibrary™ eBooks can
be found in the collections of hundreds of libraries and on the NetLibrary™ website: www.NetLibrary.com.
Publishers with eBooks in the NetLibrary™ collection include AMACOM Books, Harvard Business School Press,
Houghton Mifflin Company, McGraw-Hill, O'Reilly & Associates, and Oxford University Press.
Contact:
Brian Bell
NetLibrary, Inc.
(303) 381-8703
bbell@NetLibrary.com
Handspring is a trademark of Handspring Inc. 3Com and Palm Computing
are registered trademarks, and PalmPilot and Palm are trademarks of 3Com Corporation. All other
trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
|
