New concepts and technologies are being introduced continuously for application development in the World-Wide Web. Selecting the right implementation strategies and tools when building a Web application has become a tedious task, requiring in-depth knowledge and significant experience from both software developers and software managers.

The mission of this book is to guide the reader through the opaque jungle of Web technologies. Based on their long industrial and academic experience, Stefan Jablonski and his coauthors provide a framework architecture for Web applications which helps choose the best strategy for a given project. The authors classify common technologies and standards like .NET, CORBA, J2EE, DCOM, WSDL and many more with respect to platform, architectural layer, and application package, and guide the reader through a three-phase development process consisting of preparation, design, and technology selection steps. The whole approach is exemplified using a real-world case: the architectural design of an order-entry management system.