Scaling for E-Business

13.6. Case 2: Introducing Digital Downloadable Products

Sales of downloaded music over the Internet are growing exponentially. In its pursue of the online market, http://e-buypc.com is considering opening an associated store, The Net Music Store, to sell music recordings online. The company plans to sell high quality downloadable music in MP3 format [4]. Before introducing the new product, management wants to plan the site capacity to adequately support the new business. This is a typical initial sizing situation, in which there is little information about the problem. So the solution approach should be guided by simple models with a few input parameters, which capture the most essential aspects of problem.

The reference model of Figure 13.3 ...