Commius aims to pursue the following concrete objectives:

• To investigate, design and develop methods and components for system interoperability. Commius uses the SMTP protocol and thereby interconnect existing ICT infrastructures to serve as an interoperability infrastructure for semantic and process interoperability layers.

• To devise a framework for semantic interoperability. Pursuit of this includes the investigation and development of reference business models, structures and semantic descriptors.

• To investigate, design and develop methods and components for process interoperability. Thus, methods will be developed which enable users to model recurring business processes. We will examine novel ways to configure process model dependent, crossenterprise (e-Mail) communications and consider novel approaches to (semi-) automatic process detection.

• To deliver an open source framework for interoperability and collaboration suitable for seamless integration within a network enterprise environment and focused on SME's needs. The Commius solution will be modular and adaptable to different ICT infrastructure standards (which is often quite low in many SMEs). It will be able to evolve with enterprise interoperability nees. Open source is a key issue for the Commius interoperability framework and will support new business opportunities for SMEs in Enterprise Interoperability markets.

• To develop a pilot application which allows the validation of three industrial use cases:

  • support SMEs in the management of customs and export procedures in Spain

  • network of SMEs cooperating in a large software production application in Italy

  • support enterprise resource planning interoperability in Greece

• To devise an appropiate exploitation strategy. The Commius partners aim to ensure high visibility and wide publicity of the project outcomes and thereby support a full exploitation of the Commius framework. The potential market will be analysed, and through dissemination activities the market will be made aware of the potential of the Commius system. Target market for Commius is SME's including low technology SMEs which make up a large market sector and which are in need of more systematic adoption of practices for ICT supported interoperability and collaboration.