Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Dean P Paron

Leszek Mazur

Neil Scott Fishman

Kevin T Damour

Adam C DePue

Lingan Satkunanathan

Sean Daniel

Huseyin Gokmen Gok

A computerized method for identifying, ranking, and auditing configurable providers is described. The method receives and stores information about plural providers including provider name, provider icon, provider contact information, landing URL, configurables offered, geographical locations, and descriptions of configurables. The method receives a request from a computer that includes a geographic location. The method searches the stored information about providers in order to identify a list of provider servers that auto-configure configurables in the geographic location. The method sends information and the list of provider servers to the computer, and the sent information includes provider names, provider rank, provider landing URL, and descriptions of configurables. The method receives auditing information from the computer including a provider server selected from the list, a transaction for a selected configurable, and an indication that the selected configurable is operational. The method ranks provider servers based upon ranking factors including audit information received from plural computers.

System and method to identify, rank, and audit network provided configurables

A computer communicates with a referral server according to a web service definition to select and audit performance of an internet service. The computer sends and receives messages requesting internet services available in a geographic region and the message includes an identifier where the computer is located. Other received messages indicating available services including, top-level-domains, currency, and languages available in the geographic region. For example, for domain name services, messages include top-level domains, and for other services, messages include currency, languages, etc. Messages include a list of providers available in the geographic region, and for each provider in the list, a provider name, a description of provider services, or a provider URL. The computer sends other messages that audited selected provider performance including, a provider selected to provide an internet service, an indication of successful transaction, an indication of successful configuration, or an indication of failure.

Message based network transmission for selection and auditing of internet services

A computer performs a method of communicating with a referral server to identify configurables available to the computer based on the computer's location and at least one other factor. The computer receives a list of provider servers selected by the referral server for referring to the computer because the provider servers on the list auto-configure configurables in the computer's location and according to the at least one other factor. The method communicates with a provider server selected from the list to purchase a selected configurable and to auto-configure the computer's computing environment to operate the selected configurable. The method communicates with the referral server to provide a metric about the provider server's performance during purchase and auto-configure.

Automated acquisition and configuration of goods and services via a network

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Bellevue, WA, United States of America

Dean P Paron