Service Collaboration Environment

The extended use of services for cross enterprise collaboration rely on that the use and provisioning of services are simple, and yet that the provided services follows a coherent set of rules for their behaviour and interaction. This balance between simplicity and regulation is crucial for the stepwise evolution of both business and software services. In this paper we present the concept of a service collaboration environment to denote a domain of services working under a limited set of regulations. We use the theory of competitive market forces to define a set of guidelines that aims to enable service growth by stimulating new service consumers and providers to enter the environment. Furthermore, the guidelines, being both technical and business oriented, can be applied to balance the competitive forces from service consumers and providers.