Time to clear the air ; Understanding how and why the cloud-computing offering has changed over time. A qualitative case study from a supplier's perspective.

Abstract: Cloud computing has recently become a hot topic and has been predicted to revolutionize business. Despite the wide celebrations of the technology's benefits to organizations, researchers have given little attention to the business side of cloud and most existing literature on the subject has a clear technology focus. Hence, there is a lack of research that empirically explains how cloud has developed in a business context and what factors have influenced this change. To address this empirical gap, this study takes the perspective of a supplier of the technology, aiming to understand the supplier's role in the development of cloud. The study applies a value perspective from business-model literature together with a business-marketing framework, in order to investigate how the cloud offering has changed over time and what has influenced the suppliers to make these changes. To achieve this, we adopted a qualitative case-study approach and conducted 21 interviews with 18 experienced employees working in managing positions at one leading cloud supplier. The findings from the study imply that the offering has changed from emphasizing quantitative values to emphasizing qualitative values and a problem-solving ability, and that the offering has been influenced by a mix of the supplier's perception of the potential value contribution for customers, and the supplier's perception of what uncertainties customers are facing at that time. Furthermore, three external factors were also identified as influencing this change. The results contribute with valuable insights for suppliers of new technology, enhancing the knowledge of how a technology offering could be designed to increase customer adoption.