Vorwort: International Workshop on Multi-Agent Systems as Middleware and Architectures for Business Systems

The workshop MAS2 "Multi-Agent Systems as Middleware and Architectures for Business Systems" intends to be a medium for bringing together researchers and practitioners interested in agent-orientation and business systems. The underlying idea of the workshop consists in viewing business systems as complex layered applications that can be built on generic middleware services. If business systems exhibit specific properties such as a high complexity, independent decision makers or demand highly agile responses, this requires new application architectures and advanced middleware components which could exploit the agent metaphor in that direction. Therefore, the workshop aims at discussing the applicability of multi-agent systems as middleware and architectures for business systems. The abstraction and the merging of domain and technical perspectives under a common conceptual metaphor therefore receive a special attention in this workshop going beyond the common technically centered treatment.