Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
existing or known business models to the different players as listed in the last
column of this table.
The list of possible BMs as observed from the table includes the following:
• Already existing and utilised models in the market or minor adaptations of them
like the VAS, SaaS, SaaP (mainly for Grid middleware) or the IT-Services one
for offering consultancy services.
• The already used Open Source BM, where a version of the software such as
Grid middleware is provided for free with benefits arising from the community
further developing the product and contributing with ideas that can help evolve
this into a more complete product. Also economic benefits may be expected
from the reputation gained for the company and economies of scale and scope.
• Emerging models such as the IT-as-a-Service or SOA based services where the
new products are designed to run in new architectural environments, such as
Cloud Computing and SOA, and are expecting to derive revenue from the users
of these architectures and services.
• Evolution or alternative configurations of existing models such as the Utility
computing or ASP evolving into HaaS (Hardware-as-a-Service) or IaaS to
match the requirements of Grid in a Cloud environment. Many of these concern
the transformation of infrastructure capabilities as fixed costs into variable costs
by applying the SaaS business models to infrastructure.
The next section elaborates more on the scenarios presented in the table by discussing
specific examples from the market today.
5.6 Analysis of Examples of Business Cases
The previous two sections were dedicated to the most popular business cases in
the market, the main actors that are involved and the added value Grid can bring to
these business cases and the associated products or services. In this section several
different examples are introduced in order to demonstrate and highlight such busi-
ness cases. These examples are real business cases that already use Grid internally
or in the offerings/products of their companies. Next, after presenting the Grid busi-
ness case a correspondence of the main actors and the applicable business model by
each actor is briefly presented (Gridipedia 2008).
5.6.1 The eBay (Business Case 1)
One of the most representative companies for the first presented business case in
table 5.1 is eBay's auction site (http://www.ebay.com/). eBay is the Internet company
that runs ebay.com, the well-known online auction and shopping website, where
people and businesses buy and sell goods and services worldwide. eBay provides a
safe online marketplace where anyone can go to trade products reliably. This is the
main service that is offered and the customers are charged a small fee. The main
characteristics of eBay's infrastructure are the massive growth, the constant change,
