Is there a Market if there is only one Vendor?

Steve Hodgkinson argues in this article http://www.enterprisenetworksandservers.com/newsflash/art.php?776 for the view that Amazon's introduction last month of a "spot prize system" for their (proprietary!) Cloud Computing Virtual Machine offering (EC2) creates a market. "The service operates in a similar manner to the spot electricity market," writes Hodgkinson. This is not correct: The spot market for electricity, pioneered in Norway around 1990, would not work unless there actually is a commodity traded that is offered by multiple suppliers. Amazon's spot prizeing - though of great interest to many - does not a market make!