Message management systems: concepts and motivations

The authors motivate the need for system-level message management software. They begin by justifying the need for this kind of software and by laying out the plausibility conditions by which such a system should be measured. Problems of EDI, of process-to-process communication, and of describing information items are discussed in terms of the communication problems they present. The use of a formal communication language is proposed as a common solution to these problems. This proposal is examined in the context of the EDI problem, so as to demonstrate how the proposal might work in practice. Practical benefits of the proposal are discussed that highlight the impact such a technology might have on business practices. Finally, the propose solution is measured against the plausibility conditions presented earlier in the paper; it is found to be sufficient in some cases and in need of further investigation in others