Patent ID: 8578333

Claim:
A system for integrating and interoperating existing heterogeneous applications, the system comprising: a developer workstation running an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), the IDE being configured to allow a developer, without creating a new application, to: select a plurality of existing heterogeneous applications comprising respective visual user interfaces; define integration points on the visual user interfaces of the existing heterogeneous applications; define one or more interoperation actions on the defined integration points on the visual user interfaces for a transformation of data and invoking of commands from the defined integration points on the visual user interfaces of a first application selected from the existing heterogeneous applications to the defined integration points on the visual user interfaces of a second application selected from the existing heterogeneous applications; and generate a configuration file, the configuration file having configuration data based on the selected existing heterogeneous applications, the defined integration points, and the defined interoperation actions; and a user workstation running a runtime engine, the runtime engine being configured to: read the configuration data; launch the selected existing heterogeneous applications; and use the defined integration points and the defined interoperation actions to integrate and interoperate the selected existing heterogeneous applications without modifying source code of the selected existing heterogeneous applications.