Electronic brokering for assisted contracting of software applets

In the new era of electronic commerce, with its efficiency and globalization of communication, the ability to quickly create mutually beneficial contracts will become a critical success factor for organizations. Unfortunately, volatile complex markets demand dynamic deal making not effectively addressed by current technologies. Intermediaries will provide a solution for organizations by efficiently applying specialized knowledge to product value chains, above and beyond the costs they impose. More specifically, electronic brokers will provide automated assistance for electronic contracting through knowledge of: (1) the market, (2) requirements analysis, and (3) negotiation. Herein, we motivate the need for an intermediary contract broker, define requirements of an automated broker, and illustrate our prototype, called APPLET DEALMAKER, with an example from the domain of electronic software applet contracting. The prototype demonstrates how the automated application of contracting knowledge-especially contract restructuring-can assist users in deriving mutually beneficial deals