A couple of you have sent me emails this week, replete with foul language, wondering what the acronym, ESB, stands for. Well, it stands for Enterprise Service Bus, a term for message-brokering software that manages Web services to link distributed systems and funnel application services to where they are needed. Of course, you may have your own varying definition, as does everyone else.The fact is, the definition of ESB (the term, not the acronym) is a bit of a moving target. But somebody is going to have to iron out a firm definition at some point. Companies such as BEA Systems, JBoss and Software AG plan to get into the ESB game while companies such as Sonic Software already are players.The ESB, according to Software AG, will make it easier to manage hundreds of Web services in an environment that uses the standard Web services technology for integration. Web services are intended to provide for standard mechanisms for integration as opposed to previous proprietary systems that have been costly, such as EDI (OK, Electronic Data Interchange, for anyone who does not already know). So for everyone who needs to know, let me repeat that ESB is Enterprise Service Bus (or is it Enterprise Services Bus?). Get used to this acronym. You are going to be hearing it a lot more in coming months. Technology Industry