A new revenue maximization model using customized plans in cloud service allocation (Applied on a real company case study)

Cloud computing is emerging as a promising field offering a variety of computing services to end users. These services are offered at different prices using various pricing schemes and techniques. End users will favor the service provider offering the best quality with the lowest price. Therefore, applying a fair pricing model will attract more customers and achieve higher revenues for service providers. This work focuses on a novel dynamic pricing model which is able to satisfy advance users requirements based on normal fixed price model. This paper considers many factors that affect pricing and user satisfaction, such as fairness, QoS, SLA, and more, by highlighting their importance in recent markets and propose a flexible model which tries to utilize all resources to the highest capacity and offers low prices for underutilized resources. The simulated results shows the appropriateness of dynamic pricing for sharing of computing resources, where providers want to have more customers as a managerial decision and even more income in total.Keywords: Cloud Computing; Digital Pricing; Dynamic Pricin

Remote support technology for small business

Small business is in need of a more efficient solution for managing their Information Technology support needs. Due to small business\u27s need for custom solutions, IT service providers must dedicate highly skilled personnel to client business sites, incurring high overhead costs and restricting their ability to apply their employee base to multiple clients. This restriction in cost and flexibility places a high cost burden on small business clients, straining an already limited budget. The use of remote IT support technology may provide the basis for a solution to these problems. By applying remote technology, an IT provider could centralize their employee workforce, managing clients from a single location rather than dedicating manpower to client sites. If the technology was available to support such a model, this change in the methodology could result in a more manageable solution. Small business had the highest propensity to outsource IT support for the management of their hardware, software, web hosting, server/host management, networking, and security requirements. Many remote tools currently exist to support these needs, offering solutions for access, alerts, system monitoring, diagnosis, and reporting of a client\u27s IT infrastructure. Using these tools for remote support, a remote solution showed the greatest ability to manage the software, server/host management, and networking needs of small business organizations. Web hosting service requirements were strongly supported as well, although the use of remote solutions would cause a change in the current overall structure of web hosting support, leaving the solution more difficult to implement. In the areas of hardware and security, although many of the primary needs for support were strongly addressed, flaws were discovered that made the use of the methodology less than ideal. The primary flaws of remote support resulted from the inability to manage hardware device failure, the inability to manage the network medium, and security issues resulting from the ability to separate a system administrator from the designated system through denial of service type attacks. Although each of these flaws displayed a significant issue with the use of a remote management IT solution, it was determined that the risk of each could be limited through the use of redundancy, offering a feasible work around. From both a business and a technological perspective, remote solutions proved to be a viable alternative to on-site support for the management of small business IT needs. The total cost of remote solutions is extremely comparable to the average yearly salary of an IT employee, typically offering the same potential for the support of a client\u27s IT infrastructure as a one time investment. In addition, remote solutions offer significant savings to the provider in the reduction of administrative overhead and the increased potential for business expansion, allowing for significant cost savings to be passed on to the client. Although the use of remote technology does not offer a perfect solution in its support of small business, the functionality which is readily available presents the strong potential to increase the efficiency of current small business IT support methods and offer more cost effective solutions to small business organizations

Estimating Prices for R&D Investment in the 2007 R&D Satellite Account

This paper is part of a series that provides the details behind the Bureau of Economic Analysis's (BEA) satellite account on research and development (R&D) activity. In the current work, the focus is on the theoretical underpinnings and empirical implementation of the R&D price index used to construct real R&D output. We examine four alternative price indexes. For each, we lay out the theoretical assumptions needed for the approach to be valid and examine how well the approach works in practice. We then compare these four alternative price indexes and explain the choice of our preferred price index.

Investigating The Relationship Between Pricing Strategies And International Customer Acquisition In The Early Stage Of SaaS: The Role Of Hybrid Pricing

Modern cloud infrastructures make it possible for SaaS businesses to provide their services to clients all over the world. As a result, it is easy for a SaaS company to operate on a worldwide scale in an early stage. Innovative SaaS services are more difficult to price than regular products. Poor pricing may lead to a misleading impression of the product, while a well-thought-out price plan can assist a business in achieving its immediate and long-term revenue objectives while also satisfying its customers. The goal of this study is to investigate which pricing strategy helps SaaS organizations attract more customers. Correlation, Random Forest Regression, and Pairwise Multiple Linear regression were applied. The correlation heatmap shows that the sales volume is highly and positively associated with hybrid pricing. This indicates that the implementation of the hybrid pricing technique is associated with more sales volume.  The majority of SaaS companies in the study sample used freemium, high-low, and hybrid. The skimming and the penetration pricing techniques were the least employed pricing tactics in SaaS.  The regression model with hybrid pricing has also shown a high explanatory performance. With an overall score of 91.89 percent, the findings of this empirical study showed a sufficient degree of accuracy. According to the random forest results, among other techniques, hybrid pricing is the most significant pricing technique in increasing sales volume in SaaS.  This study recommends that the SaaS business should employ a hybrid pricing approach in order to attract more consumers, enhance the entire experience they deliver, and therefore increase SaaS sales revenues

Pricing the Cloud: An Auction Approach

Cloud computing has changed the processing and service modes of information communication technology and has affected the transformation, upgrading and innovation of the IT-related industry systems. The rapid development of cloud computing in business practice has spawned a whole new field of interdisciplinary, providing opportunities and challenges for business management research. One of the critical factors impacting cloud computing is how to price cloud services. An appropriate pricing strategy has important practical means to stakeholders, especially to providers and customers. This study addressed and discussed research findings on cloud computing pricing strategies, such as fixed pricing, bidding pricing, and dynamic pricing. Another key factor for cloud computing is Quality of Service (QoS), such as availability, reliability, latency, security, throughput, capacity, scalability, elasticity, etc. Cloud providers seek to improve QoS to attract more potential customers; while, customers intend to find QoS matching services that do not exceed their budget constraints. Based on the existing study, a hybrid QoS-based pricing mechanism, which consists of subscription and dynamic auction design, is proposed and illustrated to cloud services. The results indicate that our hybrid pricing mechanism has potential to better allocate available cloud resources, aiming at increasing revenues for providers and reducing expenses for customers in practice

Applied ecosystem services in working forests: A direct market valuation

Ecosystem services, or the benefits humans obtain from natural ecosystems, have long been recognized as critical to human health. Efforts have been taken by many to determine the non-market values of these services but few have offered a direct market valuation. Increasing awareness, scarcity, and regulation have fostered transactions, and markets are emerging that can allow for direct valuation and could provide landowners the opportunity to merchandise this natural capital. This paper provides a valuation and comparison, as a case study, of a traditional management scheme, including the marketing of fiber and recreational leases, and an ecosystem services management scheme, including the marketing of fiber, recreational leases, carbon sequestration, watershed services, and biodiversity. The traditional forest management scheme had an estimated present value at three pricing scenarios ranging from “pessimistic” at $538,714.63 to “optimistic” at$868,528.27 for the entire 3,976-acre project area. The ecosystem services management scheme had an estimated present value at three pricing scenarios ranging from “pessimistic” at $621,508.61 to “optimistic” at$1,363,628.13 for the entire 3,976-acre project area. This paper concludes that even in these early stages of ecosystem markets, an ecosystem services management scheme may offer more revenue to landowners than a traditional management scheme

An Economist's Guide to Digital Music

In this guide, we discuss the impact of digitalization on the music industry. We rely on market and survey data at the international level as well as expert statements from the industry. The guide investigates recent developments in legal and technological protection of digital music and describes new business models as well as consumers' attitude towards music downloads. We conclude the guide by a discussion of the evolution of the music industry

Framework for a sustainable ERP license model in an increasingly competitive software market

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science in Engineering, under the supervision of Prof. I. Botef. Johannesburg, July 2015Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have notoriously complex license models. Whilst the ERP market has been dominated since the 1980‟s by SAP AG and Oracle Corp., this picture is changing with these software giants slowly losing market share to the more than 100 proprietary ERP systems available today. Many of these new entrants wield simpler, more transparent licensing models. This research aims to understand how the current ERP license models behave under varying market conditions with the goal of developing a “framework for a sustainable ERP license model in an increasingly competitive software market”. The research issues are addressed by modelling an actual economic firm with the aid of a software simulation. The aim of this simulation is to model how closely ERP license models link the benefit of the ERP to the cost of the license model. Simpler license models (employed by the new ERP entrants) demonstrated a comparable level of cost/benefit. The research concludes with a proposed framework for a sustainable ERP license model. Potential future research includes investigating the use of gain-share or profit-share models for future software license models