Patent ID: 8478810

Claim:
A message hub apparatus comprising: a message storage unit for storing a received service processing message received from a service requester; a timer for measuring the time that each service processing message has resided in the message storage unit; a first storage unit for storing a minimum residence time during which the service processing message is to reside in the message storage unit; a message transmission unit for transmitting the received service processing message present in the message storage unit to a service provider, in response to the minimum residence time having elapsed; a search unit for searching, in response to receiving the received service processing message from the service requester, a mergeable service processing message present in the message storage unit which is mergeable with the received service processing message; a message merge unit for merging the received service processing message and the mergeable service processing message, in response to the mergeable service processing message having been searched; a second storage unit for storing a history of the merge processing by the message merge unit; and a control unit for determining an optimum value of the minimum residence time by performing a statistical analysis of the history of the merge processing stored in the second storage unit to determine the optimum value as being an optimum of a sum of an amount saved and a cost associated with the merge processing, and for modifying the value of the minimum residence time stored in the first storage unit to the determined optimum value.