This paper focuses on the challenges associated with composing and pricing web services. We present the results of an online experiment, where subjects were confronted with a variety of choices and decisions relating to web service markets and service composition. Our analysis shows that people expect the price of a composite web service to be lower than the sum of the prices of the elementary services, i.e., users are not willing to pay for aggregation by a third party. To obtain a viable business model for composed web services, non-standard pricing mechanisms, such as auctions and negotiations, possibly supported by electronic agents, have to be taken into consideration. Usage-based pricing schemes, combined with an option to switch to a flat subscription, seem most appropriate to penetrate the developing web service market.
@InProceedings{gunther_et_al:DagSemProc.06291.12, author = {G\"{u}nther, Oliver and Tamm, Gerrit and Leymann, Frank}, title = {{Pricing Web Services}}, booktitle = {The Role of Business Processes in Service Oriented Architectures}, pages = {1--13}, series = {Dagstuhl Seminar Proceedings (DagSemProc)}, ISSN = {1862-4405}, year = {2006}, volume = {6291}, editor = {Frank Leymann and Wolfgang Reisig and Satish R. Thatte and Wil van der Aalst}, publisher = {Schloss Dagstuhl -- Leibniz-Zentrum f{\"u}r Informatik}, address = {Dagstuhl, Germany}, URL = {https://drops.dagstuhl.de/entities/document/10.4230/DagSemProc.06291.12}, URN = {urn:nbn:de:0030-drops-8220}, doi = {10.4230/DagSemProc.06291.12}, annote = {Keywords: Composite web services, pricing} }
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