The integration of information between “application silos” is known as either “Application-to-Application Integration” or “Enterprise Application Integration (EAI)”. Typically, EAI refers to the generation of software adopted in the 1990’s that utilized:

1. Proprietary message-flow languages
2. Proprietary data transformation descriptions
3. Proprietary adaptors for each application

A2A Integration refers to the next generation of EAI that utilizes:

1. Standardized message-flow languages (like BPEL4WS)
2. Standardized data transformation vehicles (like XSLT)
3. Standardized adaptors (via web services)

It should be noted that virtually all of the EAI vendors are reinventing their platform to become compliant with the new standards. At the same time, new pure play vendors are releasing products designed from the ground up with these standards at the forefront.