Patent ID: 7006985

Claim:
A user interactive display computer system provided by a seller of computer components to purchasers of computer systems, for configuring computer systems including said computer components comprising: means for prompting each of a plurality of said system purchasers to make a sequence of interactive data entries, each of said entries relative to the data processing needs of the purchaser of one of said computer systems; means for applying a set of purchaser business rules to the data entries of each of said purchasers to produce a system needs solution for each of said purchasers; means for allocating said computer components to the computer system of each purchaser based upon said system needs solution for the purchaser; means for tracking the quantities of each of said computer components thereby allocated to computer systems sold by said seller to all of said purchasers; means for applying a set of seller business rules to the tracked quantities of each of said computer components to produce a set of optimized quantities for each of said computer components based on the seller's business needs; means for providing a set of business rules for reconciling said purchasers' system needs solution with said optimized quantities; and means for automatically offering, to selected ones of said purchasers financial incentives based upon said business rules for reconciling to thereby reconcile said purchasers' system needs solutions with said optimized quantities of said component based upon the seller's business needs.