Design and implementation of agent-based flexible asynchronous messaging system

Asynchronous messaging systems like e-mail systems need some advanced characteristics, such as intelligence, controllability and scalability, to accomplish more effective and sophisticated message handling. We propose a framework of next generation messaging systems, Flexible Asynchronous Messaging System (FAMES), which consists of autonomous and collaborative software agents. In FAMES, various messaging functions composing of agents can be utilized to integrate heterogeneous user environment. Moreover, FAMES operates message flow in an intelligent manner, considering the receiver's own convenience and that flexible message delivery can be achieved. We designed and implemented the proposed system based on multi agent technology, and we show its effectiveness through experimental studies using a prototype system.