The document discusses middleware as both a programming abstraction and infrastructure. It provides an overview of conventional middleware platforms including Remote Procedure Call (RPC), Transaction Processing (TP) Monitors, and Object Brokers. RPC hides distribution behind procedure calls but does not support transactions across multiple calls. TP Monitors are RPC-based systems that add transactional support. Object brokers like CORBA standardize component-based architectures but follow a similar model to RPC. The document argues that middleware platforms converge towards providing standardized interfaces and services to facilitate distributed application development.