Remote assembly of control messages

A system for remote assembly of messages to create a control message, comprising a shared co-ordination space 7 for assembly of messages, and a plurality of components 3, 5, 9 for performing predefined actions and for exchanging messages according to a predefined ontology. The plurality of components includes a first component 3 for directing other ones of the components 5 to publish information on the co-ordination space 7 and in response gather several distinct pieces of the information and assemble the distinct pieces as a message by which to control the actions of the said first component 3. According to a preferred embodiment, the shared co-ordination space is a tuple space 7, one of the components is a call control application 3 for controlling a communication switch 5, and at least one other component is a directory application 9 containing location information.