R P Sundarraj

Utility computing models such as cloud computing provide a variety of computing services using several pricing options. Flexibility of requirements and availability of pricing options, enable a consumer to make trade-offs between cost and time. These trade-offs are governed by consumers' behavior with respect to how they discount price vis-à-vis time of delivery. In this paper, we study this trade-off for the cloud-computing context, based on theoretical models from the time-discounting (intertemporal) literature. We test this model using an experimental study with 162 participants.

Cloud computing has transformed the decision-making processes involved in the procurement of information-technology services. Not only has it brought about tremendous speed-ups to computing jobs, but also, the flexibility it provides in terms of availability and pricing options now enables a consumer to make trade-offs between price and time, based on the situation on-hand and the turnaround-time requirements. These price-time trade-offs have been studied in the behavioral-economic literature, but have not been considered formally in the procurement and the cloud-system bodies of literature. We fill this gap, by taking up the question of how the impatience characteristics of the procurer (and in turn his/her procurement decisions) get affected by two behavioral factors, namely, delay horizon and situational involvement. We test the model using a factorial experiment with 180 participants and find that impatience degree and type are affected by delay horizon and situational involvement. We discuss practical implications for a cloud-service provider, as well as implications for the intertemporal and IS literature.

In electronic negotiations, buyers and sellers are represented by negotiating agents and it becomes imperative for the negotiating agents to acquire user's preferences to be able to negotiate better. In this paper we present the design of a web based engine to capture a buyer's choices over time through a preference elicitation tool known as Time - Tradeoff sequence(TTO Sequence). Preferences thus elicited are used by buyer's electronic agents to negotiate price and date of movie tickets with cineplex owners. Further, we illustrate with an example that negotiation outcome is affected by the timepreference of the buyer. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.

Cloud computing offers information technology resources like infrastructure, platform and software in the form of on-demand services. Adoption of cloud yields several benefits to the consumer and these benefits could be realized to their fullest potential in a market based mechanism. At present, commercial marketplaces for cloud-based services are in their infancy. Nevertheless, we are gradually moving towards marketplaces like Amazon AWS. In future, electronic agents would negotiate on the behalf of consumers in procuring a service from cloud markets. In negotiating a cloud-service, the agents should be capable of representing their principals' preferences. These preferences help the agents to improve the outcome of a negotiation. The possibility of a successful outcome can be enhanced by exploiting trade-offs that are driven by preferences among multiple issues. One such preference is time preference which can modeled using time discount functions and is useful in generating price and time trade-offs. In this paper, we propose a hyperbolic discounting model based on the theory of intertemporal choice to generate price and time trade-offs. Further, we provide an algorithm to integrate hyperbolic discounting function based trade-off model with a time dependent tactic (TDT) based concession model in the negotiation process. © 2012 IEEE.