To get closer to its customers and increase revenue through an expanded user base, VitalSource Technologies contracted Mike to design, develop, and deploy VitalSource Store. The new online bookstore lets readers buy their books like they buy their music—by downloading them off the Internet.

VitalSource Store is a Ruby on Rails e-commerce application rendered in an embedded web view of a desktop application. The web application includes the use of AJAX, web services, single sign-on, credit card processing, an extensive data model, and integration with other existing systems. Once a book is purchased it's automatically downloaded to your machine where you can read and annotate the book in the VitalSource Bookshelf client application.