Business method and system for serving third party software applications

• US 7,730,169 B1
• Filed: 03/17/2000
• Issued: 06/01/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 04/12/1999
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Softricity (Microsoft Corporation)
• Inventors: Schaefer, Stuart, Mysliwy, Owen, Greschler, David M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen; Tammy T
• Application Number:
  US09/527,929
• Time in Patent Office: 3,728 Days
• Field of Search: 709/229, 709/225, 709/228, 709/203, 709/242, 709/219, 709/223, 713/201, 713152-156, 717/168, 717/169, 717/170, 717/171, 717/173, 717/174, 717/175, 717/176, 717/177, 717/178, 705/53, 705/58, 707 9- 10, 707/104, 380/21
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2209/549 Remote execution
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/54 Interprogram communication
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99945 Object-oriented database structure processing

Abstract

A method and system for serving software applications to remote clients across the interne, for example, is disclosed that preferably utilizes standard, SMB (server message block), protocols, which are available in commercial operating systems. Further, an associated business method is described in which subscribing institutions can out-source the application serving to a third party institution, transparently. Finally, a port proxy system is provided that enables tunneling through firewalls that are configured to block communications from SMB ports.

Claims

1. A method for serving applications to a target client computer for a subscribing institution, comprising:

configuring a third party application hosting system to provide one or more applications on behalf of subscribing institutions to requesting clients, wherein the subscribing institutions include organizations that outsourced hosting of one or more applications to an organization that controls the third party application hosting system;

receiving, by the third party application hosting system via a public computer network, a signal indicating that a client computer selected a hyper-text application link for an application displayed by the subscribing institution;

determining that the subscribing institution is authorized to have applications provided by the third party application hosting system based on user account information in the signal indicating that the client computer selected the hyper-text application link;

sending, by the third party application hosting system, a helper application to the client computer, wherein the application resides on the third party application hosting system and the helper application is configured to control execution of the application on the client computer by downloading portions of the application for execution, periodically communicating with the third party application host system to determine whether to shutdown the application, and deleting the downloaded portions of the application when the application is shutdown; and

sending at least portions of the application in response to requests from the helper application.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending an application descriptor for the application to the client computer, wherein the application descriptor configures the helper application to control execution of the application.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the application descriptor includes minimum system requirements information for determining the availability of adequate system resources on the client computer for execution of the application.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the helper application is configured to modify registry settings when the application is shutdown.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining that the client computer is authorized to execute the application based on user account information in the signal indicating that the client computer selected the hyper-text application link.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending advertisements to the client computer, wherein the helper application is configured to display the advertisements on top of the a graphical user interface for the application.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the helper application is configured to maintain advertisements in a+1 depth relationship to the application on a display of the target client computer.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

sending advertisements for the subscribing institution to the client computer, wherein the helper application is configured to display the advertisements for the subscribing institution on top of the a graphical user interface for the application.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the helper application is configured to track a status of the execution of the application.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the helper application is configured to terminate the execution of the application if a connection to the third party application hosting server is lost.

11. A computer readable storage medium, including computer executable instructions comprising:

instructions for selecting a hyper-text application link for an application displayed on a webpage generated by a subscribing institution, wherein a selection of the hyper-text application link is sent to a third party application hosting system that stores the application;

instructions for receiving an application descriptor from the third party application hosting system, wherein the third party application hosting system and the subscribing institution are on separate private computer networks and are connected to each other by a public computer network, wherein the subscribing institution includes an organization that outsourced hosting of one or more applications to an organization that controls the third party application hosting system and the third party application hosting system is configured to provide the one or more applications on behalf of the subscribing institution to requesting clients;

instructions for determining that the subscribing institution is authorized to have applications provided by the third party application hosting system based on user account information in a signal indicating the selection of the hyper-text application link;

instructions for executing a helper application downloaded from the third party application hosting system, wherein the helping application is configured to control the execution of the application in accordance with information in the application descriptor, wherein the application resides on the third party application hosting system, wherein the helping application is configured to retrieve and execute portions of the application, wherein the helping application is configured to shutdown the application if predetermined criteria are not satisfied, wherein the helping application is configured to delete the retrieved portions of the application when the application is shutdown; and

instructions for receiving at least portions of the application in response to requests from the helping application.

12. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11, further comprising:

instructions for sending a request to subscribe to receive at least one application from the subscribing institution to the third party application hosting system.

13. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11, wherein the selection of the hyper-text link for the application sends information including an identifier of a selected application, a subscriber identifier associated with the subscribing institution, and a session identifier associated with a client computer to the third party application hosting system.

14. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11, further comprising:

instructions for receiving the helping application from the third party application hosting system.

15. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11, further comprising:

instructions for receiving the application descriptor, wherein the application descriptor includes minimum system requirements information for determining the availability of adequate system resources on the client computer for execution of the application.

16. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11, further comprising:

instructions for modifying registry settings when the application is shutdown.

17. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11, further comprising:

instructions for displaying advertisements received from the third party application hosting system.

18. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11, further comprising:

instructions for displaying advertisements for the subscribing institution.

19. The computer readable storage medium of claim 11, further comprising:

instructions for displaying an advertisement in a+1 depth relationship to a graphical user interface of the application.

20. A third party application hosting system, comprising:

a processor coupled to a computer readable storage medium, the computer readable storage medium including;

instructions for storing an application for a subscribing institution;

instructions for configuring a third party application hosting system to provide one or more applications on behalf of the subscribing institution to requesting clients, wherein the subscribing institution includes an organization that outsourced hosting of one or more applications to an organization that controls the third party application hosting system;

instructions for receiving a signal indicating that a client computer selected a hyper-text application link for an application displayed by the subscribing institution, wherein the subscribing institution are on separate private computer networks and are connected to each other by a public computer network, wherein the signal includes an identifier of a selected application, a subscriber identifier associated with the subscribing institution, and a session identifier associated with the client computer;

instructions for determining that the subscribing institution is authorized to have applications provided by the third party application hosting system based on user account information in the signal indicating that the client computer selected the hyper-text application link;

instructions for sending a helper application to the client computer, wherein the helper application is configured to control execution of the application on the client computer by retrieving portions of the application, shutting down the application if predetermined criteria are not satisfied, and deleting the retrieved portions of the application when the application is shutdown; and

sending at least portions of the application in response to requests from the helper application.

21. The third party application hosting system of claim 20, wherein the helper application is configured to terminate the execution of the application if a connection to the third party application hosting server is lost.

22. The third party application hosting system of claim 20, wherein the helper application is configured to track a status of execution of the application.

23. The third party application hosting system of claim 20, wherein the computer readable storage medium further includes instructions for sending advertisements to the client computer, wherein the helper application is configured to display the advertisements on top of the a graphical user interface for the application.

24. The third party application hosting system of claim 20, wherein the computer readable storage medium further includes instructions for determining that the client computer is authorized to execute the application based on user account information in the signal indicating that the client computer selected the hyper-text application link.