Patent ID: 8312451

Claim:
A computing system comprising: a computer network; a server connected to the computer network; and a client device operable for communicating with said server over said computer network; wherein said client device comprises at least one processor that executes an application shell software module that provides a dynamically configurable application in a piecemeal manner by individually downloading and loading a plurality of software components into the application shell software module, each software component being individually stored on the computer network and being downloaded and run by the client device when needed and being discarded from the client device after being run; wherein said server receives, from the application shell software module, a request for available software components, controls a search of an index for available software components and transmits a response to said application shell software module providing details of available software components that were not identified in the received request, including, for each software component: i) identification data identifying the software component; ii) location data identifying a location from which the software component can be obtained; and iii) start and stop data identifying how to start and stop the software component; wherein said application shell software module: i) receives said details of available software components from said server; ii) retrieves a selected software component from the location identified by said location data for the selected software component; and iii) starts and stops the selected software component within the application shell software module in accordance with the received start and stop data.