Patent ID: 8448187

Claim:
A conflict resolution apparatus for resolving conflicts among a plurality of applications, comprising: an application conflict rule storage section configured to store an application conflict rule specifying a conflict condition among the plurality of applications; an application executing section configured to determine the conflict condition among the plurality of applications in accordance with the application conflict rule and configured to execute at least one application among the plurality of applications in accordance with a result of the determination of the conflict condition; and an application conflict rule updating section configured to update the application conflict rule, when a resource of the conflict resolution apparatus is changed, in accordance with a change of the conflict condition among the plurality of applications, wherein the application conflict rule updating section includes: a system managing section configured to detect a change of a state of a device provided in the conflict resolution apparatus; a device-conflict rule managing section configured to obtain the resource of the conflict resolution apparatus after the state of the device has been changed, and configured to determine whether or not the conflict condition that has been specified by the application conflict rule stored in the application conflict rule storage section is to be changed in accordance with the obtained resource; and a conflict information updating section configured to update, when the conflict condition is determined to be changed, the application conflict rule stored in the application conflict rule storage section to create a new application conflict rule specifying a new conflict condition in accordance with the change of the conflict condition among the plurality of applications, wherein a resource type of the device is a memory, and the device-conflict rule managing section configured to determine whether or not the conflict condition is to be changed, in accordance with a memory capacity of the conflict resolution apparatus in which the state of the device has been changed, and in accordance with the memory capacity required for operations of the plurality of applications.