I.B.M. is by no means alone in its pursuit of utility computing or computing on demand.

I.B.M., to be sure, faces plenty of competition in the emerging market for utility computing.

This can facilitate commercial transactions, as in utility computing, or make it easier to assemble volunteer computing networks.

This time, the industry is betting that 30 years of advances in software, hardware and networking can deliver utility computing.

The definition of "utility computing" is sometimes extended to specialized tasks, such as web services.

In the late 90's utility computing re-surfaced.

There is space in the market for specific industries and applications as well as other niche applications powered by utility computing.

Cloud computing also leverages concepts from utility computing in order to provide metrics for the services used.

One potential approach is to use utility computing.

Basically, utility computing is a business model in which one company outsources part or all of its computer support to another company.