He supports the Siemens business units in software architecture and software product line engineering as a consultant and technical lead. He coauthored Pattern-Oriented Software Architecture, Volume 3: Patterns for Resource Management and Remoting Patterns: Foundations of Enterprise, Internet, and Real-time Distributed Middleware, both published by John Wiley in 2004. He's also a team member of Software Engineering Radio ( http://se-radio.net). Contact him at Siemens, Otto-Hahn-Ring 6, 81739 Munich, Germany; michael.kircher@siemens.com; www.kircher-schwanninger.de/michael.