A system, method and article of manufacture for seamless server application support of client terminals and personal automated tellers

A plurality of clients are connected to one or more servers (210). These clients (200) include network terminals, and non-network terminals, including personal automated tellers. When a client (200) initiates a connection with a server (210), the server (210) responds to the request for connection by transmitting a message back to the client (200) to determine whether the client (200) is a network terminal or not. The client (200) responds with a message that is received by an application dispatcher at the server (210) which takes one of a pair of actions based on whether the client (200) is a network terminal (200). If the client terminal is a network terminal, then the application dispatcher spawns a server application in the server (210) which responds to the client (200) application in the client (200). Going forward, the server application responds to all future requests from the client application. If the client is not a network terminal, then the application dispatcher initiates a client application in the server to service the client terminal application requirements. If the client is a personal automated teller, the client application is a personal automated teller application. Requests from the client application on behalf of the client terminal are subsequently serviced by a server application at the server which communicates to the client terminal via the client application at the server. A new communication protocol is also defined for processing automated teller transactions.