Patent ID: 7325234

Claim:
In a system supporting shared access to a plurality of concurrently operating applications by multiple users associated with one or more entities, a method performed by a data processor for monitoring individual application utilization, said method comprising the steps of: maintaining a first record of different users associated with an entity; maintaining a second record of different applications invoked by at least one of said different users; maintaining a third record of use of an executable program employed by said different applications invoked by said at least one of said different users, said third record supporting allocation of proportion of usage of said executable program by individual applications of said different applications, said allocation being performed by determining an estimate of relative duration of use of said executable program by individual applications of said different applications; and employing said first, second and third records for intermittently compiling data identifying operation usage characteristics of individual applications of said different applications by said at least one of said different users associated with said entity in response to a predetermined processing operation event.