Can ontologies enhance the software engineering process? Obviously they help with the engineering activities of certain classes of systems -web agents, for example- but the question is stronger. Can ontology really serve as a foundation for implementing solid and effective software engineering processes in any class of domain?

The question goes even beyond for systems engineering, where the informational reality inside the computer gets into close interaction with the real reality of masses and energies.

There, computer-based ontologies touch the very realm of being; the reified ontology.