I think it presents a good and broad overview of a field that many researchers are now starting to view as fundamental for a wide class of problems. It characterizes this field in a systematic fashion and discusses the main approaches (both strengths and weaknesses) in an objective fashion. It also presents a compelling vision of what can be achieved and outlines some of the key steps that need to be undertaken in order to arrive there.

It is more of a "vision" paper that highlights the importance of the topic, the range of possible solutions that people are using to tackle this problem, and the key research challenges that need to be overcome in this area.

I have been interested in large-scale systems of interacting software components since my Ph.D. studies. I think these systems represent the most exciting class of computer problems —including fields such as the Web, the Grid, peer-to-peer systems, pervasive computing applications, and e-commerce—and I think that in such systems automated negotiation will simply be the de facto form of interaction.

This paper outlines the various ways in which autonomous software agents can negotiate with one another in order to come to an agreement on some particular matter. It highlights why such negotiation is important for a range of computer applications and then outlines a general framework in which the various facets of this negotiation can be characterized. It then reviews the main approaches that are currently used to tackle this problem—game theoretic techniques, heuristic techniques, and argumentation-based techniques—highlights their relative strengths and weaknesses, and then goes on to enumerate the key issues that need to be addressed in order to realize the full potential of this technology.