Distributed Applications

Multiple forces are altering the landscape of application development. The PC revolution continues to make ever more powerful computers available at ever-lower costs, while the Internet is enabling global information sharing.

In business, global competition and the increased pace of change demand rapid deployment of highly adaptable systems. The organizational boundaries that have traditionally constrained applications are giving way to the opportunities inherent in electronic commerce and networked operations. Today, the geography of an application can extend far beyond an organization’s boundaries, literally into consumers’ homes. It is possible to think of an Internet application needing to handle literally millions of users a scale difficult to imagine a few years ago.