Associate Professor of Information Systems and American Economics Institutions Faculty Fellow, Department of Information Systems and Operations Management of Warrington College of Business Administration, University of Florida, Gainesville
This study examines cloud computing spot pricing dynamics and the influence of latency on those pricing dynamics. Using the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud U.S. East and West market spot instance pricing and latency intraday data from April 9, 2010, to May 22, 2011, we find considerable time variation in spot instance prices, and prices are often persistently higher in the West. Bivariate vector autoregressive model results show that within-market autoregressive pricing effects are larger than across-market effects. We also document that over 70% of the relative price discovery occurs in the East market. Our regression results further show that EastÐWest latency differentials have a significantly positive effect on EastÐWest pricing differentials. Latency creates a dynamic pricing wedge that widens or narrows conditional on the latency differentials. Using an error correction model, the speed of adjustment from long-run pricing convergence errors causes the short-brun price differential to narrow, but the adjustment does not completely offset the price differential.
Malicious software, commonly termed Òmalware,Ó continuously presents one of the top security concerns, and causes tremendous worldwide financial losses for organizations. In this paper, we propose a structural risk model to analyze malware propagation dynamics measured by a four-parameter (asymptote, point of inflection, rate, and infection proportion at inflection) growth curve. Using both social network data and technological network infrastructure from a large organization, we estimate the proposed structural risk model based on incident-specific nonlinear growth curves. This paper provides empirical evidence for the explanatory power of the structural characteristics of the underlying networks on malware propagation dynamics. This research provides useful findings for security managers in designing their malware defense strategies. We also simulate three common malware defense strategies (preselected immunization strategies, countermeasure dissemination strategies, and security awareness programs) based on the proposed structural risk model and show that they outperform existing strategies in terms of reducing the size of malware infection. > >
Many software firms offer a fully functional version of their products free of charge, for a limited trial period, to ease consumers' uncertainty about the functionalities of their products and to help the diffusion of their new software. This paper examines the trade-off between the effects of reduced uncertainty and demand cannibalization, uncovers the condition under which software firms should introduce the time-locked free trial software, and finds the optimal free trial time. As software firms have the option of providing free trial software with full functionalities but a limited trial time or limited functionalities for an unlimited trial time, we develop a unified framework to provide useful guidelines for deciding which free trial strategy is preferred in the presence of network externalities and consumer uncertainty.
The status quo of prohibiting broadband service providers from charging websites for preferential access to their customers-the bedrock principle of net neutrality (NN)—is under fierce debate. We develop a game-theoretic model to address two critical issues of NN: (1) Who are gainers and losers of abandoning NN? (2) Will broadband service providers have greater incentive to expand their capacity without NN? We find that if the principle of NN is abolished, the broadband service provider stands to gain from the arrangement, as a result of extracting the preferential access fees from content providers. Content providers are thus left worse off, mirroring the stances of the two sides in the debate. Depending on parameter values in our framework, consumer surplus either does not change or is higher in the short run. When compared to the baseline case under NN, social welfare in the short run increases if one content provider pays for preferential treatment but remains unchanged if both content providers pay. Finally, we find that the incentive to expand infrastructure capacity for the broadband service provider and its optimal capacity choice under NN are higher than those under the no-net-neutrality (NNN) regime, except in some specific cases. Under NN, the broadband service provider always invests in broadband infrastructure at the socially optimal level but either under- or overinvests in infrastructure capacity in the absence of NN.
In this paper, we build analytical models to examine the impact of network externalities on the competition between open source software (OSS) and proprietary software. We investigate the competing OSS and proprietary software products with comparable functionalities in four different scenarios depending on whether they are compatible with each other and whether the underlying market is fully covered (i.e., all consumers adopt one of the two products). Furthermore, we study which party has the most incentive to make its product compatible with its counterpart. When the market is fully covered, the installed base and the profit of proprietary software increase at the expense of a decreasing user base for OSS in the presence of network externalities. This competitive imbalance becomes more pronounced when OSS and proprietary software are incompatible and the market is partially covered. Finally, we find that in the presence of network externalities, being compatible with its rival is not desirable for the proprietary software, but highly beneficial to the OSS community.
The computing industry is gradually evolving to cater to the demand for software-as-a-service (SaaS). Two core competencies that have emerged over the past few years are that of the application service providers (ASPs) and the application infrastructure providers (AIPs). The arrangements between them result in system dynamics that is typical in supply chain networks. We examine the performance of an SaaS set up under different coordination strategies between these two players. Our analysis indicates that coordination between the monopoly ASP and the AIP can result in an outcome with the same overall surplus as can be achieved by a central planner. Even though the players have an incentive to deviate, it is possible to create the right incentives so that the economically efficient outcome is also the Nash equilibrium. The results of the analysis have significant implications for the coordination strategies for providers in the burgeoning business model of delivering software services over the Internet.
Whether broadband service providers (BSPs) should be allowed to vertically integrate with content providers is a contentious issue. This is even more so when viewed through the lens of the net neutrality debate, since the vertically integrated firm can prioritize the delivery of its own content at the expense of that of its competitors if net neutrality is not enforced. Using a game-theoretic model, we analyze the issues of vertical integration of content and broadband services surrounding this debate from an economic perspective. Our analysis establishes the various equilibria in the game and shows that the vertically integrated BSP does not have any incentive to abide by the principles of net neutrality. If net neutrality is not enforced, social welfare might, in certain cases, decrease with vertical integration, and in such cases, the BSP's objectives are at odds with that of the social planner. With other ranges of parameter values, social welfare increases with vertical integration at the expense of the competing pure-play content provider. Interestingly, we find that it is not always true that the BSP will always degrade the delivery of the competing content, and in fact will sometimes have the incentive to prioritize the latter over its own. The analysis thus provides crucial inputs to policymakers as they decide on whether to allow vertical integration between a BSP and a content provider in the absence of net neutrality.
Many countries limit the influence of foreign entertainment products, such as music, film, and television programs, to protect their domestic cultural industry. Commonly observed policy tools include quotas, tariffs, and subsidies. However, advances in digital technology enable consumers to access digital versions of foreign entertainment programs via the Internet, a leakage channel that bypasses government protection methods. This calls for a reexamination of the effectiveness of these traditional tools. We build a unified analytical framework to study the impact of digital technology on cultural protection policies. We find that in the presence of Internet leakage, imposing a quota is the least effective protection policy to maximize the total domestic social welfare, but using either a tariff or subsidy policy is optimal, depending on the quality difference between domestic and foreign entertainment programs via the traditional channel and the Internet. Using quotas remains the least effective policy when we extend the analyses to consider the presence of piracy. In addition to the quality difference between foreign and domestic entertainment, the proportion of unethical consumers and the cost of piracy determine whether using tariffs or subsidies is the optimal policy.
Web services are interoperable and reusable software components that can be dynamically discovered and integrated over the Internet. Developed on open standards, Web services have become a promising solution to inter- and intra-organization application integration. The supply chain of Web services exhibits two distinct features that are not considered in previous literature on information and physical-good supply chain: the integration of multiple Web services and the cross-network externality effect between Web service vendors and users. In a quest to fill in the research gap, this paper studies the optimal pricing strategies of a monopolistic intermediary in the supply chain of complementary Web services. The Web service intermediary (WSI) provides both technical and aggregation services, and seeks to charge optimal subscription and listing fees. Analytical results show that in a supply chain of complementary Web services exhibiting cross-network effects, the optimal strategy for the WSI is to set the listing fee such that all service providers list on it. On the other hand, the optimal subscription fee depends on the intensity of the cross-network effect, consumers' valuation of value-added services, and the characteristics of the Web services under consideration.