Patent ID: 7086065

Claim:
A computer system for supporting communication between a plurality of users and at least one application server comprising: an application service program on the at least one application server for receiving a client request from a client program executing on a computer associated with at least one of the users; a client interface program for communicating messages between said client program and said application service program; a service manager bean coupled to said application service program for creating and returning to said client program a handle to a functional bean appropriate to the client request wherein the functional bean is designed to incorporate functions rather than data and is configured to model a business function; a data store interface for coupling said application service program to a data storage system, said data storage system comprising at least one computing device, wherein said computing device is not said computer associated with said at least one of the users; and memory coupled to said application service program, said memory for queuing customer requests and for servicing the queued customer requests in accordance with the code contained in the functional bean, said code providing for access to the data storage system via the data store interface.