A Structured Content Analytic Assessment of Business Services Advertisements in the Cloud-Based Web Services Marketplace

The Internet and emerging technologies are facilitating the creation of new marketplaces designed to address a diverse range of business and societal needs. As companies are utilizing technology to manage their business processes, such a marketplace has emerged that is designed to provide third-party availability of business services delivered via Web services technology, particularly in the context of Cloud Computing. The Web Services Marketplace creates a common trading ground wherein buyers and sellers of business services can come together within a centralized marketplace. However, sellers of business services must provide a mechanism by which knowledge and awareness of the service is created for the buyer and a means by which sellers can effectively compete in the marketplace. The most widely accepted method for accomplishing these tasks is advertising. This study investigates the nascent phenomenon of the advertising of business services within the Web services marketplace, develops a theoretically grounded definition and characteristics of business services offered in the Web Services Marketplace, and develops a model for the effective advertisement of business services offered in the Web Services Marketplace. sellers come together to complete a satisfactory transaction. Recent research indicates (Roth, 2007) that in order for new emerging markets to survive, market designers must understand the workings and requirements of the marketplace in question. In particular, equilibrium of buyers and sellers must be achieved wherein buyers are capable of making acceptable choices among alternative offerings. As technology is DOI: 10.4018/jdtis.2011010102 International Journal of Dependable and Trustworthy Information Systems, 2(1), 18-49, January-March 2011 19 Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. increasingly being utilized to automate business processes, we are witnessing the emergence of the Web Services electronic marketplace that has been designed to provide a mechanism by which buyers and sellers of business services delivered via Web Services technologies can benefit from the efficiencies provided by a centralized marketplace. In question, however, is whether an effective mechanism is in place within the marketplace that will enable buyers of business services to make suitable choices among the various alternatives available. The purpose of this research is to conduct an examination of a Web Services Marketplace in an effort to determine the effectiveness of the buyer/seller relationship and to develop the tools necessary for such an examination. Business Services Delivered via the Web Services Mechanism A 2006 IDC report states that 2007 will see the beginning of a “hyper-disruption” in business models as business processes are offered as business services through online delivery mechanisms (IDC, 2006). Emerging Internet standards such as XML, SOAP, WSDL, UDDI and the Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) are allowing the development of reusable Web services to encapsulate and distribute business processes as business services on an interoperable platform and implement business collaborations within and across organizational and system boundaries (van der Aalst et al., 2006; Ran, 2003). Albrecht et al. (2005) posit that Web services offer many advantages not offered by earlier technologies in this context. As organizational boundaries become less defined and customers increasingly expect real time responses from organizations, there is increasing need for the flexibility offered by business services delivered through the Web services mechanism. Web Services are technologies that allow application interaction crossing firm or company boundaries economically and incrementally and have significantly transformed the nature of inter-organizational commercial activities (Moitra & Ganesh, 2005). According to Moitra and Ganesh (2005), Web Services denote a set of technologies that allow business processes or information to be accessed over the Internet. This functionality facilitates the buying and selling of business services, utilizing the Internet as the sales medium. In this context, we find the emergence of new marketplaces such as CloudABCDY.com (real name of the company is hidden) as a Web Services Marketplace where companies can buy and sell their business services delivered through the Web Services mechanism. Emergence of the Web Services Marketplace The Web Services Marketplace is a new and emerging phenomenon that has received little attention thus far in research. While research regarding electronic marketplaces is abundant, the nature of the business services sold and the process of consuming those services are significantly different in this context and are not well understood (Taylor, 2003). Unless otherwise specified, for the remainder of this paper, business services in the new electronic marketplace refer to business services delivered via the Web services mechanism that are bought and sold in a Web Services Marketplace. To meet the increasing need for business services delivered using the Web services delivery mechanism, Web Services electronic marketplaces are emerging as outlets for companies to publish and market their services to business buyers on a subscription or pay-peruse basis. Such marketplaces provide benefits to both business buyers and sellers. Buyers benefit from reduced procurement and search costs, and have the opportunity to evaluate a wide range of business services offerings from various sellers. Sellers benefit by having access to a large customer base without having to incur investment and development costs of the marketplace infrastructure. The Web Services Marketplace is an emerging phenomenon, similar to but going beyond what has been conceptualized for software as service. 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