Editorial Pointers

Middleware—long regarded as the glue that connects two separate applications—is in the throes of transformation as more and more traditionally static systems shift over to the world of mobility and interactivity. Indeed, middleware will be a key ingredient in the next generation of the Web; that of a pervasive entity incorporating a rich combination of interactive computing and physical devices.

This month’s special section gives us a preview of adaptive middleware. The articles within offer a detailed look at some of the novel directions in current research for the next generation of middleware. Instead of the glue analogy, guest editor Gul Agha suggests we think in terms of "enabling dynamic interaction patterns."

The middleware technology depicted in these pages will ripen throughout the decade, says Agha, ultimately resulting in a seamless integration of the physical world and computational world. We hope this information prepares you for what is to come and the role middleware will play to make it all happen.

Also this month, Michael Ettredge, Vernon Richardson, and Susan Scholz detail results of their study of the time it takes major financial firms to post current annual reports on the Web. When you consider the competitive advantage of having reliable financial information online, it’s surprising how few institutions actually post material in a timely manner. In addition, Kai Lung Hui and Patrick Chau present a framework for classifying digital products, pointing out the importance of such a framework for devising solid e-commerce strategies.

The success of a system development project depends primarily on the hands it’s in. Gary Klein, James Jiang, and Debbie Tesch contend a successful project team requires a creative mix of perspectives and professional orientations. And Gloria Marks explores a team of a different force, namely, extreme collaboration. Her story involves a team of engineers at JPL working together against the clock.

Raquel Benbunan-Fich describes a conceptual model that demonstrates how IT can support learning and group communications. And Aries et al. share their experiences reengineering and tuning large client/server architecture systems at Boeing to illustrate methods for analyzing capacity and performance of distributed enterprise systems.

Diane Crawford,
Editor