The Computer Utility as a Marketplace for Computer Services.

Computers are unique in their ability to be programmed for a wide variety of applications. Because of its flexibility, a computer system can support, concurrently, many services that do not require dedicated hardware. Conversely, these services act to bring the capabilities of the computer to the consumer who might otherwise find the operational difficulty of running computer programs too formidable. Since the computer is supporting many services which are sold to the consumers, it is natural to model the system as a marketplace. The requirements of such a marketplace are not satisfied in contemporary computer systems. However, the marketplace can be evolved from some existing computer system without fundamental changes. Presently the user of a computer requires considerable expertise on the part of the user. The evolution to marketplace is necessary if the capabilities of the computer systems are to be made more widely available than they are now. Modified author abstract