Katarina Stanoevska-Slabeva

Toward a Community-Oriented Design of Internet Platforms

Building user communities can contribute significantly to the success of an on-line platform. The literature on establishing on-line communities and on extending existing platforms with functionalities that enable community building emphasizes the social and economic aspects of community building and neglects the technical aspects. On-line communities have two elements: community members and platform. The platform provides a virtual social meeting space and shapes communication with the service it provides. In order to determine what kind of services will enable, stimulate, and foster community building, this paper identifies community modules and proposes a typology of on-line communities and their community-supporting platforms.

Grid and Cloud Computing

In todays dynamic business environment, IT departments are under permanent pressure to meet two divergent requirements: to reduce costs and to support business agility with higher flexibility and responsiveness of the IT infrastructure. Grid and Cloud Computing enable a new approach towards IT. They enable increased scalability and more efficient use of IT based on virtualization of heterogeneous and distributed IT resources. This book provides a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of Grids and Clouds and of how companies can benefit from them. A wide array of topics is covered, e.g. business models and legal aspects. The applicability of Grids and Clouds in companies is illustrated with four cases of real business experiments. The experiments illustrate the technical solutions and the organizational and IT governance challenges that arise with the introduction of Grids and Clouds. Practical guidelines on how to successfully introduce Grids and Clouds in companies are provided.

Cloud Basics - An Introduction to Cloud Computing

Cloud Computing has attracted a lot of attention in recent times. The media as well as analysts are generally very positive about the opportunities Cloud Computing is offering. In May 2008, Merrill Lynch (2008) estimated the cost advantages of Cloud Computing to be three to five times for business applications and more than five times for consumer applications. According to a Gartner press release from June 2008, Cloud Computing will be “no less influential than e-business” (Gartner 2008a). The positive attitude towards the importance and influence of Cloud Computing resulted in optimistic Cloud-related market forecasts. In October 2008, IDC (2008b) forecasted an almost threefold growth of spending on Cloud services until 2012, reaching

Internet electronic product catalogs: an approach beyond simple keywords and multimedia

42 billion. Same analyst firm reported that the cost advantage associated with the Cloud model becomes even more attractive in the economic downturn (IDC 2008b). Positive market prospects are also driven by the expectation that Cloud Computing might become the fundamental approach towards Green IT.

The Changing Role of IT Departments in Enterprise Mashup Environments

Abstract Internet-based Electronic Product Catalogs (IEPCs) are one of the most important parts of electronic markets. They are the merchant’s interactive interface towards online customers. Based on the features of their carrier, the interactive and ubiquitous Internet, IEPCs are online, permanently up-to date, and enable customization as well as direct communication between seller and buyer. Even though IEPCs are more sophisticated compared to paper-based catalogs, the search for products on the Internet is still a cumbersome process. Surveys show, that online customers have difficulties navigating through merchants’ sites to find the products they need. In this paper, a comprehensive approach for IEPCs as complex information spaces will be presented. First a detailed requirements analysis for IEPCs will be conducted. Then a concept for organizing information within IEPCs, which goes beyond simple keywords and multimedia, will be presented. Finally, technologies for its implementation will be identified.

The management of business transactions through electronic contracts

A new paradigm, known as Enterprise Mashups, implicates a shift concerning the service development and consumption process: end users combine and reuse existing Web-based resources within minutes to new applications in order to solve an individual and ad-hoc business problem. In such democratized operational environments, the role of IT departments is changing. They are no longer solely responsible for developing or installing business applications. Instead, end users in the business units compose their own operational environment in a collaborative manner. This paper analyses and discusses challenges and the changing role of IT departments toward service intermediaries by leveraging the St. Gallen Media Reference Model (MRM).

Mobile Enterprise Applications--Current State and Future Directions

Based on a Business Media Framework (BMF) as an instantiation of a new media reference model, the paper provides a solution for the integrated management of business transactions, considering contracts as the key information of all legally relevant actions in a business transaction. Derived from these concepts and assumptions, a contracting framework is presented that gives an overview of the services and roles that have to be fulfilled in a business transaction to manage the flow of information. Finally, a container architecture as an instantiation of a market transaction managing entity is presented, described and embedded into the BMF. The concept provided in the paper was developed within the Secure Electronic Contracts (SeCo) project at the =mcm Institute at the University of St. Gallen and the University of Zurich in Switzerland (M. Gisler et al., 1999). The focus of the project is to merge business requirements on electronic contracting with IT security requirements and legal aspects. The paper mainly covers a contracting framework that meets business requirements on electronic contracting in business media.

Generic Business Model Types for Enterprise Mashup Intermediaries

The 2nd generation of mobile applications (apps) based on Smart phones and tablet PCs are completely changing the way mobile software is developed, distributed and consumed. In particular mobile enterprise applications (MEA) have a disruptive effect on existing enterprise software and require rethinking in the software industry. Despite their impact, MEA have not been considered sufficiently in literature. This paper contributes to fill this gap by investigating more than 500 existing MEA, by providing an overview of typical characteristics of MEA, and extracting of both future directions in the MEA market and a related research agenda.

Development of a generic value chain for the grid industry

The huge demand for situational and ad-hoc applications desired by the mass of business end users led to a new kind of Web applications, well-known as Enterprise Mashups. Users with no or limited programming skills are empowered to leverage in a collaborative manner existing Mashup components by combining and reusing company internal and external resources within minutes to new value added applications. Thereby, Enterprise Mashup environments interact as intermediaries to match the supply of providers and demand of consumers. By following the design science approach, we propose an interaction phase model artefact based on market transaction phases to structure required intermediary features. By means of five case studies, we demonstrate the application of the designed model and identify three generic business model types for Enterprise Mashups intermediaries (directory, broker, and marketplace). So far, intermediaries following a real marketplace business model don’t exist in context of Enterprise Mashups and require further research for this emerging paradigm.

Requirements Analysis for Community Supporting Platforms based on the Media Reference Model

Grid middleware provides the fundamental framework for the provision of Grid services. However, Grid middleware is complex software that consists of several modules. The modules for a specific grid middleware exhibit in many cases complementary features and are produced by different software providers. Thus, in order to provide a complete grid solution for business customers, it is necessary to establish a complete value network comprising all relevant suppliers. Business aspects of grid, such as business models and value networks have not been considered broadly in research yet. This paper contributes to fill this gap by describing the value network of a grid case study and by aggregating the results into a generic grid value chain.