Vital Source Technologies, Inc., the e-textbook arm of Ingram Content Group company, and B.i. Publications Pvt. Ltd. have agreed to form a joint venture, Ingram-B.i. Pvt. Ltd., to launch Ingram's comprehensive VitalSource Bookshelf e-textbook platform to institutions in India. B.i. Publications is an India-based distributor of scientific, technical and medical content to the academic and professional communities.
Ingram and the Bi Group have plans to make the VitalSource Bookshelf platform available to institutions throughout India. The new company will provide VitalSource sales, service, and user support for publishers, schools, and channel resellers in India.
The VitalSource Bookshelf platform, designed for education, claims to be the preferred and most used e-textbook delivery platform in higher education today. With longstanding relationships with more than 300 of the best-known publishers, and with over 3 million registered users on 6,000 campuses worldwide, the platform was designed to support learning and built to scale for dramatic growth.
The higher education marketplace in India is expanding rapidly, with industry sources projecting that its current capacity of 14 million students is expected to expand to 40 million by 2020. Similarly, the marketplace has seen a dramatic growth in Internet use, with 5 to 7 million new users added every month, making India third in Internet users after China and the United States.
