Billing method and system for collaboration solutions
AssigneeEdmund Kwan
InventorEdmund Ming Kwan
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Methods and systems for service providers to provide hosted enterprise solutions to businesses, allowing these businesses to collaborate with other business partners or clients, via the Internet. Under such systems and methods, service providers would allow clients to decide which partners to invite to enroll in subscription plan in order to share and minimize the cost to the clients without having the clients incur a cumbersome approval process from all their partners.
Claims15
A method of cost-sharing of a client's subscription to usage of a hosted enterprise solution, the method comprising:
- creating a list of partners of a client to define the client's unique collaboration communities;
- creating an invitee list that lists which partners should be invited to become subscribers to the hosted enterprise solution;
- and
- issuing, based on an amount of external revenue generated, credit to the clients that the clients can use to offset against their subscription fees to the service providers for using their hosted enterprise solutions.
A system for cost-sharing of a client's subscription to usage of a hosted enterprise solution, the system comprising:
- a first module for developing new and maintaining existing partner lists;
- a second module for developing new and maintaining existing invitee lists;
- a third module for merging invitees' information with invitation templates to generate invitations;
- a fourth module for generating invitations via electronic mail to all invitees;
- a fifth module for updating subscription information that is accessible by clients online, thus allowing clients to manage their subscription fees to service providers;
- and
- a sixth module for generating electronic messages of reminders to urge unresponsive invitees to come to a subscription conclusion.
A method of implementing a reward program by a service provider for the benefit of a client, the method comprising:
- setting, based on a pre-determined formula, an external revenue goal for a client;
- offering the external revenue goal to the client;
- and
- the client attempts to earn credit to completely offset subscription fees charged by a service provider offering the external revenue goal.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.