The software you choose must support not only what you are asking of it today but also what you will ask of it in five years. A manufacturer's promise that the features in a future release will solve your problems could prove worthless if that release never comes through. On the flip side, because of the up-front investment and heavy management requirements, you must also be certain you aren't buying more middleware than you need. Standard scripting support. You might think the requirements listed have more to do with business than government apps, but you would be wrong.
Many agencies use advanced middleware and have the same requirements as any business.
Allaire Corp.'s ColdFusion is an example of business middleware widely used in the government. The IRS' Compliance Research Division uses ColdFusion to give 33 field offices access to a database of more than 2,000 reports. The Texas Public Safety Department uses the middleware to manage a criminal records database through a Web interface. In the world of middleware, objects reign supreme. Put in the simplest terms, objects are program modules, and distributed object controls are the tools used to manage users' requests to run the modules on remote systems.