Dual roles of knowledge in knowledge economy

The two definitions of knowledge economy - economy of knowledge as products and knowledge-based economy - are actually two sides of the coin, or two related views of the same phenomenon. As the economic vitality is propelled by innovative knowledge, the knowledge itself may be packaged as a valuable product. Cloud computing provides a good example. Well-established online companies like Amazon depends on its powerful information infrastructure for everything it's doing in the online market space. They are now making their processing capabilities available to the small businesses who want to go online but lack the technological resource to do it. The cloud computing phenomenon illustrates the fact that knowledge can play dual roles in the knowledge economy point of view - knowledge as a product and knowledge as an asset. There are companies, however, that specialize in creating or gathering patents with the hope that they'll profit from their collections someday.