text_combined: trip houston another student invited tom gros come next wednesday stinson forwarded stinson gibner hou ect 02 10 2000 05 25 pm paulo rocha e oliveira 02 10 2000 12 04 56 pm stinson gibner cc subject trip houston stinson thank e mail phone number 617 492 9551 currect resume would say graduated princeton university 1996 mathematics came straight mit phd operations management sloan schoolof management first three years took required coursework mathematics optimization stochastic processes etc well number courses psychology mit harvard working prof gabriel bitran interested mathematical modeling service operations particular interested interaction customers companies hence interest psychology tentative title phd thesis pricing substitute products internet sending summary sent tom gros weeks ago give idea research thanks looking forward meeting research group next week paulo pricing substitute products internet objective develop new tools decide pricing policies goods services sold internet motivation reseach motivated fact traditional choice optimization models appropriate internet related businesses technological innovations associated internet brought overload information inevitably affects ways consumers make choices furthermore companies great deal influence much information consumers access problem pricing substitute products important strategic issue faced internet companies consumers usually search generic products e g vcrs computers without knowing exactly buy companies show different products different prices consumer type flexibility available internet came problem pricing substitute products unique internet methodology developed research transferrable number settings pricing services services unique many cases customers buy one many services offered given company model help companies decide services offer customers much charge services research strategy research strategy divide pricing problem two components combined generate optimal pricing strategies components choice models optimization models choice models choice models describe customers make choices management literature draws two main sources models psychology economics common approach psychology models use called heuristic elimination methods methods consist elimination options based sequential eliminations features one choice remains methods tend context specific lend easily mathematical analysis economists focus utility maximing models significantly mathematically tractable psychological models common economic model choice logit model problem types models accurate reflections consumer make choices internet first step research develop choice models capture interactions going customers companies internet optimization traditionally optimization problem consists maximizing revenue certain planning horizon internet problem maximizing revenue still exists also need learn customers short term profit based sales long term profit based well know customers able retain optimization problem must therefore include short term component sales long term component learning