Mike Clark

You can now browse and download electronic books from the VitalSource Store: the Rails e-commerce application James and I have been working on the last several months (press release). Think of the application as being like iTunes for books. Using the Mac or Windows client, you can browse and buy books from the online store rendered in an embedded web view. Once a book is purchased, it's automatically downloaded to your machine and organized in the VitalSource Bookshelf client application. You can then read, annotate, highlight, copy and paste, and search the content you own on any client machine. So unlike a traditional browser-based Rails application, VitalSource Bookshelf is a hybrid desktop and web application. Browse and buy globally; read and annotate locally.

Browsing the more than 1,000 titles currently in the store (including 11 free books), you'll notice many classics such as Shakespeare and textbooks in subjects such as law, history, and medicine. VitalSource already has an existing customer base in the educational market, and much of the content is focused on the academic audience. However, previous versions of the software were only available to customers in those markets.

The new VitalSource Store and updated versions of VitalSource Bookshelf open the door for everyone to buy their books like they buy their music. From 99 cents for a classic or $9.99 for the complete works of Shakespeare, there's something for everyone and more content is on the way. So grab a copy of VitalSource Bookshelf, download some free books, and give it a spin!

Now comes the part where I could tell you that this project was successful because we used Ruby on Rails. Except I wouldn't be giving credit where credit is due. Oh, Rails definitely helped us get the software to market quickly. But the project was successful primarily because of one commonly undervalued raw material of software development: the people.

VitalSource has an impressive small team of people that I'm honored to have worked alongside. James and I built the core Rails application that serves up the online store, but it was the team that brought all the existing systems together to give you an integrated and interactive experience. Although we all worked remotely, the team gelled quickly and in the end I think everyone felt that together we were unstoppable.

Our charter was to help VitalSource bring a quality product to market quickly so that they could begin generating revenue as soon as possible. After all, delivering working software that meets business needs is what really matters. Now that orders are flowing, we're already starting work on the next release. Rails is enabling us to rapidly meet changing market needs, but it's the people that really make the difference.