A computon is a combined unit of computing power, including processor cycles, memory, disk storage and bandwidth, proposed in 2005 by researchers at Hewlett-Packard, with the word being a cross between "computation" and "photon", the name for a packet of electromagnetic energy. HP hoped that the computon would become the computing industry's equivalent to public utility's watt-hour.
References
References
- Who wants to buy a computon?, The Economist, 12 March 2005 Grid computing: Electricity is sold by the kilowatt-hour. Now a researcher has proposed that computing power should be sold by the computon
- Hoffman, Thomas (May 26, 2003). "HP takes new pricing path for utility-based computing - It plans to measure on-demand IT services with a 'computon' metric". Computerworld. Archived from the original on 24 June 2003.