Decisions, Models and Opportunities in Cloud Computing Economics: A Review of Research on Pricing and Markets

Cloud computing has emerged as a key information technology and systems model over the last few years. Major organizations have developed and delivered cloud computing solutions and continue to do so. Consequently, a number of strides were made in the advancement of technology leading to a growth in the adoption of cloud computing. The growing recognition of cloud computing services necessitates a focus on the business aspects of cloud. However, we feel that research in this area is scant. To this effect, we performed a systematic review of cloud computing literature and reviewed 2891 abstracts and 157 articles published until the year 2012. Based on the findings of the review, we establish a framework for organising the extant research on cloud business aspects. Using the framework, we find cloud economics to be the most widely researched business aspect. In this paper, we provide a detailed review of the application of decision models in the context of cloud economics, with a specific focus on pricing and markets. The proposed framework and review results serve as a reference to IS researchers and practitioners to understand decision situations, models and opportunities. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.