Financial aspects of cloud computing business models
Jaakko Jäätmaa · Aaltodoc (Aalto University) · 2010
The purpose of the study was to explore financial aspects of cloud computing business mod-els from information technology (IT) services provider’s perspective. The financial aspects were divided into revenue model and related pricing mechanisms and cost structure and re-lated cost accounting mechanisms according to business model ontology. Cloud computing is a new computing paradigm and the latest megatrend in IT industry devel-oped as a result of the convergence of numerous new and existing technologies. It is characterized by provision of rapidly scalable and measurable IT capabilities as a service on on-demand and self-service basis over the network from common resource pool. The study was carried out as a single case study in a global company offering IT services for large enterprises and public organizations and currently preparing to introduce its own cloud services. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers of the case company for exploring the financial aspects of cloud services. Qualitative data analysis was employed for processing and summarizing the findings. Findings of the study suggested that each cloud service should have a distinct business model. The business model is a mediating construct that translates the new technology to the serv-