Service markets allow users to discover, purchase, and utilize services offered on a specific platform. As service platforms grow in number of users and variety of offerings, it raises the question of whether this phenomenon continues to benefit users. Based on a literature review, the paper...

IT service businesses can achieve economies of scale and scope faster than in traditional product businesses. In particular, as IT service platforms will become the founding infrastructure of our economies, the analysis and understanding of the value that a service platform can generate is of...

Based on the promising developments in Cloud Computing technologies in recent years, commercial computing resource services (e.g. Amazon EC2) or software-as-a-service offerings (e.g. Salesforce.com) came into existence. However, the relatively weak business exploitation, participation, and...

In the Grid Computing environment, many users need the results of their calculations within a specific period of time. Those users are willing to pay for getting their work completed on time. However, this requirement must be agreed on in a Service Level Agreement (SLA) by both, the user and the...

Many IT service platforms (e.g., cloud computing platforms) are built as closed systems. They do not allow their customers to interoperate with other platforms or port their data to other platforms. As switching to different system is costly, customer of a closed IT system can be considered...

The current access policies and funding schemes of computing e-infrastructures represent a huge challenge for the sustainable growth of computing e-infrastructures and a serious jeopardy for investments made into these e-infrastructures. In order to be able to address these issues, the economics...