Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2003. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI Company.

Consumers of news and music have embraced the Internet and its application very quickly; whereas companies in news and music have been rather more reluctant to integrate the Internet into their processes and their products and services. Only step by step- in a gradual adoption process- are they taking advantage of the new technology, generally in terms of products and services, or process and cost optimisation. / One of the main contributions of my thesis is how companies in the content sector can react to a constantly changing technological and competitive environment. Content providers in news and music do modify their business model in response to the Internet innovation and the consequences it (and the more recent mobile technologies) has for important market forces. The ‘Six forces model for Internet business models’ I developed shows how constant changes in market and company-based forces like Internet (and mobile) technology, end device development, financial constraints, customer behaviour, business structures, the competitive environment and institutional conditions constrain content providers to respond to new innovation through modification of their business model. The outcome of the business model modification itself, such as new products and services, new revenue sources, new structures for the company’s organisation and new cooperation, in turn has an impact on the market and company-based forces. To support companies’ strategic decision making I developed the ‘C+ model for content providers’ which describes a flexible, adaptable business model- not only designed for online and mobile distribution of content, but equally applicable to any business model in an increasingly competitive market environment. / Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2006.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2006. / Title from title screen (site viewed Mar. 13, 2007). PDF text: 107 p. : ill. (some col.) ; 0.36Mb UMI publication number: AAT 3223009. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in paper, microfilm and microfiche formats.

Recent years witness the proliferation of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud services, which provide on-demand resources (CPU, RAM, disk, etc.) in the form of virtual machines (VMs) for hosting services of third parties. As such, the way of enabling scalable and dynamic Internet applications has been remarkably revolutionized. More and more Application Service Providers (ASPs) are launching their applications in clouds, eliminating the need to construct and operate their owned IT hardware and software. Given the state-of-the-art IaaS offerings, it is still a problem of fundamental importance how the ASPs should rent VMs from the clouds to serve their application needs, in order to minimize the cost while meeting their job demands over a long run. Cloud providers offer different pricing options to meet computing requirements of a variety of applications. The commonly adopted cloud pricing schemes are (1) reserved instance pricing, (2) on-demand instance pricing, and (3) spot instance pricing. However, the challenge facing an ASP is how these pricing schemes can be blended to accommodate arbitrary demands at the optimal cost. In this thesis, we seek to integrate all available pricing options and design effective online algorithms for the long-term operation of ASPs. We formulate the long-term-averaged VM cost minimization problem of an ASP with time-varying and delay-tolerant workloads in a stochastic optimization model. An efficient online VM purchasing algorithm is designed to guide the VM purchasing decisions of the ASP based on the Lyapunov optimization technique. In stark contrast with the existing studies, our online VM purchasing algorithm does not require any a priori knowledge of the workload or any future information. Moreover, it addresses the possible job interruption due to uncertain availability of spot instances. Rigorous analysis shows that our algorithm can achieve a time-averaged VM purchasing cost with a constant gap from its offline minimum. Trace-driven simulations further verify the efficacy of our algorithm. / published_or_final_version / Computer Science / Master / Master of Philosophy

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The A/E/C industry faces the inability to meet client demands of projects completed on time and on schedule due to the minimal collaboration between parties, communication problems, and mistakes. The present project management system in the industry is paper-based, and requires the owners of information to distribute the knowledge at their discretion. This system has inherent delays in information transmission, which lead to miscommunications, mistakes, and costly rework, which in turn, cause increases in the project schedule and budget. There is a need to fundamentally change the project management philosophy of the industry. Rather than each party maintaining a project management system, there needs to be a single, integrated project-based system. One type of integrated project management systems is project-specific websites. This research focuses specifically on the project-specific websites for project management (PSWS) offered by construction-based project management application service providers (PMASPs). While there are substantial improvements in the project process including cost and time savings by using a PSWS, the industry is reluctant to adopt the new technology. There are numerous barriers to the implementation of PSWS. A large barrier is determining how to implement and use PMASP-Based PSWS. Through a literature review, a project management questionnaire, investigations of the leading construction-based project management application service providers (PMASPs), and implementation case studies, a chapter on implementation considerations and lessons was developed. The Implementation Considerations and Lessons chapter serves to provide companies a basis for PSWS implementation and use. The chapter contains three parts: background, implementation, and sustainability. The background section identifies the benefits of using PSWS, examines the ability of five construction-based project management application service providers to meet the project management need of the parties, and identifies the barriers to implementation users should expect. The second part of the chapter details the steps needed to successfully implement and use the system. The final part describes the sustainability challenges that occur after implementation. / Master of Science

Thesis (MAcc)--Stellenbosch University, 2008. / Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is a software delivery model whereby software applications, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Human Resource administration and payroll and Procurement, are hosted centrally by various service providers at their premises. These hosted applications can be delivered to multiple service customers via an existing Internet connection, with a browser based front-end, or via a thin client system. As all hardware and support services are provided by the service provider, operational costs for customers are reduced in comparison to a traditional, in-house supported software application. Traditional cost estimates for the deployment of on-premise software applications exclude personnel costs that are needed for ongoing support and maintenance. Depending on certain variables, such as the application involved, these costs can vary between 50% and 85% of the total cost of ownership of the application. Additionally, the cost of maintenance, periodic upgrades and continued support, on an annual basis, can be up to four times the initial cost of purchasing the application. From the perspective of the service customer the most difficult part of determining whether to move to SaaS is the total cost of ownership (TCO) calculation. This is due to the fact that the TCO does not merely include the cost of new licences, but also the careful consideration of certain variables, before a potential service customer can make a decision regarding a potential move to SaaS. These variables include considerations such as: - Physical and logical communication interfaces; - User requirements; - Security and privacy of information and data; - Customisability; - Availability of services and data; - Service levels; - Data ownership; and - Integration with existing systems. Presently no comprehensive framework exists that sets out the various aspects to be considered by a user company when determining whether to adopt SaaS, or not. The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive framework of considerations relating to the adoption of SaaS by user companies in the form of a Total Cost of Ownership calculation. The framework was compiled after considering the variables that would influence the decision to move to SaaS, the impact of these variables on the potential SaaS customer and the costs associated with each of the above aspects. The framework compiled can assist potential SaaS customers in the decision to adopt SaaS. In addition, this table of considerations can also be used by the potential SaaS vendor in determining the viability of their SaaS offering, when compared to an equivalent, on-premise based software solution.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Waikato, 2008. / Title from PDF cover (viewed October 1, 2008) Includes bibliographical references (p. [331]-366)

Universiẗat, Diss., 2005--Lüneburg.

A economia globalizada e os avanços tecnológicos propiciaram um novo modelo de Outsourcing de Tecnologia de Informação (TI): os provedores de serviços de aplicativos (ASP - Application Service Providers). As discussões a respeito de ASP intensificaram-se nos três últimos anos, com a proposta de comercialização do software como um serviço. Quanto maior a interdependência da área de TI com as metas de negócios das organizações, maior a ênfase dada à satisfação das expectativas do cliente quanto aos serviços prestados pelos provedores. No mercado, têm-se adotado os acordos dos níveis de serviços (SLA - Service Level Agreements) como mecanismo de controle das atividades de outsourcing. Porém, essa adoção é nova e imatura, e a literatura é escassa. Tanto os provedores quanto os cliente sentem a necessidade por estruturas de implantação semelhantes às de SLA. Essa carência é ressaltada no caso dos modelos ASP. Propondo-se a contribuir com a compressão do modelo ASP e de SLA para ASP, apresenta-se uma pesquisa exploratória das características desse modelo com SLA, de modelos de qualidade de serviços de outsourcing e finalmente de considerações que devem ser feitas para garantir a qualidade dos serviços ASP, empregando-se os SLA. / The global economy and technological advances propitiated a new model of Information Technology (IT) Outsourcing: the Application Service Providers - ASP. Discussions regarding ASP became more frequent in the last three years because of the new approach of selling software as a service. As the interdependency between the IT area and the business goals of organizations becomes greater, the emphasis on fulfilling the client\'s expectations regarding service rendered by providers becomes stronger. In the market, Service Level Agreements - SLA have been adopted as control mechanisms of outsourcing activities. However, this adoption is new and immature, and the literature on the matter is scarce. Providers and clients feel the need for implementation structures similar to SLA\'s. In lhe case of ASP models, this necessity is emphasized mainly due to the lack of conceptual information on the ASP model. In order to better comprehend lhe ASP and the SLA models for ASP, I am presenting an exploratory research about the characteristics of the new approach with SLA models, outsourcing models of service quality and considerations, which must be carried out to ensure quality of ASP services employing SLA.