Purpose

If there is an emerging Grid wave (whatever its size), will the associated economic and business model issues be any different from what we are already familiar with based on over fifty years of commercial experience with IT?  Or,  is the  emerging reality that Grid Computing itself, or Grid in convergence with other evolving technology and economic forces, is leading to economic and business model scenarios that are substantially different than what has been seen before? 

The purpose of this  roundtable is to bring together a community of people who can  knowledgably address these questions. 

Participants  will discuss the extent to which insights and models from current and historical experience with IT commercialization can be applied to the emerging Grid-computing scenarios. They  will also discuss whether and how Grid, or Grid in convergence with other forces, is creating qualitatively different situations and  how we can best adapt our existing body of economic and business model experience to deal with this novelty. The roundtable  will also try to distill if there are a critical few knotty and elusive problems in the realm of governance, policy or incentives that are neither purely technological or economic or business model in nature, but seem to be at the root of what is holding back the creation of marketplaces for grid-based services.

Roundtable participants include a distinguished group of management scientists and applied economists who understand the existing and emerging frontiers of theory and  research pertaining to the economics of IT.  Participants also include investigators from major industrial R&D labs of companies developing Grid technologies who are working on economic and business model issues  for  Grid-related resource allocation and management.  Other participants are from companies and countries experimenting with medium - and large - scale Grid application  projects.