Applying agent technology for enterprise-wide solutions

Summary form only given. The challenges set forth by the ever increasing need for effective resource and application integration on an enterprise-wide scale or even across ad hoc collaborating groups of enterprises demand enormous flexibility from today's software technologies and infrastructures. The integrated approach of multiagent systems, combining language philosophy and social sciences ideas with distributed systems and artificial intelligence technologies, is perfectly tuned to these complex and dynamic domains. The author provides an essential overview of agent technology from the perspective of enterprise and cross-enterprise collaboration. After the conceptual discussion, real sample cases are presented, drawing from actual past and present experiences of Dr. Giovanni Rimassa and his employing company Whitestein Technologies in building software systems and solutions leveraging the power of agent technology.