Software Agent Technology for Supporting Ad Hoc Virtual Enterprises

This chapter introduces a new idea of using software agents for supporting ad hoc virtual enterprises and similar forms of temporal businessto-business collaboration. It seems that current information and telecommunication technologies, based on information interchange and local data processing, are not flexible enough to deal with modern business requirements, especially dynamic and temporal business relations, heterogeneity of hardware, software and communication means, and data complexity. The proposed approach differs in the distribution of both data and programs for data treatment at-the-place and just-in-time. The distributed and remotely executed programs, software agents, are autonomous entities, targeted on obtaining preprogrammed goals, and working in the name and under the authority of their owners. The authors hope that the proposed techniques for agent preparation, distribution, and execution make the whole system safe and secure, providing an efficient environment for a wide spectrum of temporal and ad hoc business collaboration.