After completing each measurement period, the cloud provider's billing management system calculates the amount owed by a cloud consumer. there are two common available to cloud consumers: pre-payment and post-payment. with pre-paid billing, cloud consumers are provided with it resource usage credits that can be applied to future usage bills. with the post-payment method, cloud consumers are billed and invoiced for each it resource consumption period, which is usually on a monthly basis.

Medtronic, inc., is a medical technology company that competes for customers with st. jude medical s. c., inc. james hughes worked for medtronic as a sales manager. his contract prohibited him from working for a competitor for one year after leaving medtronic. hughes sought a position as a sales director for st. jude. st. jude told hughes that his contract with medtronic was unenforceable and offered him a job. hughes accepted. medtronic filed a suit, alleging wrongful interference. which type of interference was most likely the basis for this suit? did it occur here? medtronic, inc., is a medical technology company that competes for customers with st. jude medical s. c., inc. james hughes worked for medtronic as a sales manager. his contract prohibited him from working for a competitor for one year after leaving medtronic

Onsider the following subscription behavior information from genie, a web site that provides tools for constructing a family tree (ancestor search). subscriptions cost $9.99 per month, but you are charged for the entire year at the time of purchase. there is a one-year minimum term when you sign up for the service. once purchased, subscriptions are set to renew automatically unless the subscriber cancels them. when a membership renews, it renews for a one-year term and again you are charged for the entire year. there are no variable costs associated with providing this service to an individual customer, but genie does engage in customer relationship activities that they believe will increase customer retention. these customer relationship activities cost genie about $10 per year per customer. based on a sample of 1000 customers that joined genie five years ago, near the time when the company was founded, they were able to determine how many of those customers remained subscribers in the second year, third year etc. based on this information, genie calculated the average annual retention rate to be 20%. genie uses an annual discount rate of 8%. a. last year, genie spent $10,000 placing advertisements on google. genie management believes that these advertisements were responsible for about 300 new subscribers. would you recommend to genie management that they purchase more google ads? b. suppose a newly-introduced loyalty program increases the number of customers that remained to 30%. does this new data change your answer to 9.a? c. do you have any hesitations or concerns about making recommendations to management based on your above estimate of customer lifetime value?

In the 1970s, kmart used blue light specials to encourage customers to flock to a particular department having a temporary sale. a spinning blue light activated for approximately 30 seconds, and then an in-store announcement informed shoppers of the special savings in the specific department. over time, loyal kmart shoppers learned to flock to the department with the spinning blue light before any announcement of special savings occurred. if kmart was employing classical conditioning techniques, what role did the spinning blue light play?