Abstract: Systems and techniques to create a reverse auction object having a plurality of components and assigning an auction profile, which is a set of auction rules, to the reverse auction object. The set of auction rules allow a user to control display of information to a plurality of bidders for an online reverse auction. The set of auction rules may also allow a user to control bid validation.

Abstract: A real-time messaging environment for collaborative communication scenarios is described. A real-time messaging component according to the present invention is capable of transferring messages relating to data received from one or more data sources to one or more messages recipients that may themselves act as data sources. The messaging component comprises access to at least one content data base in which content data are stored, a message queue for queuing messages that are to be sent to the one or more recipients and a message builder for retrieving messages from the message queue. The queued messages include references to content data in the content data base. The message builder requests the reference content data and inserts the requested content data in the retrieved messages prior to sending them to the message recipient.