Siebel Systems, Inc.

Ying-Chieh Lan

Nardo B Catahan, Jr

Ming-Tao Liou

Blair Thomas Wheadon

Joshua M Roper

Martin Finnerty

Xia Liu

Roy Chia-Jih Liu

A method, system, application programming interface, and computer program product that enable enterprise data management application programs to request input/output services from a device manager controlling devices. The device manager operates in a heterogeneous environment including incompatible devices provided by multiple vendors. These requests, and responses from the device manager to the enterprise data management application program, are communicated in a markup language format, rather than in a device-specific native language. This structure enables the vendor of the enterprise data management application program to send requests for services, including both data and instructions to use specialized features of a device, without the need to change the enterprise data management application program to support device-specific native languages.

Implementing device support in a web-based enterprise application

Embodiments of the invention provide methods and data structures for the effective and efficient synchronization or inter-exchange of invoice information between business applications employing disparate DOFs. For one embodiment, a DOF is provided that allows for relationships between entities, also referred to as invoices, to be modeled as attributes of an entity and for customization of the DOF in a manner that facilitates upgrading of the DOF. For one embodiment, the invoice DOF is provided in a common software language such as XML. For one embodiment, invoice information from each of several business applications is translated to a common DOF. The invoice information, in the common DOF, is then inter-exchanged among the several business applications. Each application has only to translate the invoice information from the common DOF to the application-specific DOF of the respective business application.

Invoice data object for a common data object format

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Foster City, CA, United States of America

Ying-Chieh Lan