## 5 Discussion
This business model establishes EASY as a public-good entity similar in principle to web-based weather information provided free of charge to the public by the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) in Australia. It fits well with the concept of EASY not duplicating farm management systems that already exist and instead would provide information and capability that could be enhanced by commercial entities. Three primary difficulties exist with this business model. The first is that the (federal) Government agency that would have the responsibility for hosting EASY would have to receive a substantial new budget allocation to do so; demonstrating the value proposition of a new government funded information system is never an easy task. This relates to the second major difficulty with this business model. To get support for a Federal budget allocation for EASY, individual state/provincial governments would have to agree to a centralized approach to the establishment and maintenance of a farm information system or the federal government would need to agree to a decentralized implementation. Both of these options would have their challenges. Considerable effort would have to be expended to get states/provinces to agree to develop a farm management system founded on a federally funded and hosted web service. Finally, a third potential impediment is the likelihood that a government-hosted system would also be a government-controlled system. Non-governmental EASY stakeholders such as agricultural grower's groups may be unwilling to encourage member use and support of a system to which they have no input. This could potentially constrain a two way flow of information among farmers, researchers and other key user groups of the system. The second business model considered was that EASY be established and maintained as a financially sustainable commercial entity. To achieve this, EASY would have to be supported financially by end-users who believe their individual subscription cost represents sufficient value for money. Under this model, end-users could also include government-funded statutory bodies such as CMAs. Another major subscriber would be grower-group consortiums that represent individual landowners/farmers. These are supported financially through levies on sales and include groups like the Australian Citrus Growers, Grain Growers, and Murray-Goulburn Cooperative (dairy). These would subscribe to EASY as part of their operational activities or to provide a service to members. Finally, end-users would also be agricultural consultants who would create topic packages that could be on-sold to individual farmers. Three primary difficulties are seen with this business model. First, many of the data archives required for EASY are publicly held. If they are used in a commercial enterprise, commercial rates would probably apply for their acquisition and use. The costs of core data under such a pricing model could increase the end-user cost to the point where it is considered too expensive for landowner subscribers. The second issue is one of system continuity. Establishing EASY as a commercial entity would require start-up funds and an initial awareness-raising period. However, targeted end-users--particularly landowners/farmers--might be hesitant to commit to using EASY without confidence that EASY will be available in the long-term. Third, for-profit commercial entities are unlikely to establish such an EASY system without a firm time-linked commitment from \"anchor\" stakeholders, or without difficult-to-obtain risk capital. Hence government entities and grower groups would have to agree to commit financial resources to the establishment and initial maintenance of an EASY system. This might be difficult to achieve, particularly since concern has been expressed about having DSS development and maintenance be market-driven [28].