Middleware

T he computing facilities of largescale enterprises are evolving into a utility, much like power and telecommunications. In the vision of an information utility, each knowledge worker has a desktop appliance that connects to the utility. The desktop appliance is a computer or computer-like device, such as a terminal, personal computer, workstation, word processor, or stock trader's station. The utility itself is an enterprise-wide network of information services, including applications and databases, on the localarea and wide-area networks.