A distributed computer system in several embodiments includes several architectures or configurations. Each configuration exhibits a different degree of coupling between an application that provides data and an application that consumes that data. In an embodiment, a provider application knows the identity of a consumer application, converts data into the format of the consumer application, and transmits the data to the consumer application. In other embodiments, the provider application does not know the identity of the consumer application, and transmits data to the consumer application through an intermediary. In such embodiments, either the provider or the intermediary can perform the data conversion. In another embodiment, a manager object oversees the transformation of the system from one configuration to another in real time.