1. A machine-readable storage device encoded with a computer program product implementing a software delivery manager (SDM) for deploying software to a computer system, the SDM being executed by the computer system to: receive a software delivery archive (SDA) containing at least one component of software to be deployed on the computer system, a standard manifest describing the at least one component of software, a supplementary manifest including a SDM compatibility version to ensure that the SDA is only handled by a compatible SDM, and a deployment descriptor that includes one or more development parameters, which identify a database pool that entity beans are to use on a deployment engine, or which specify persistence characteristics of container-managed entity beans, the SDA further containing a nested SDA; receive input specifying a deployment configuration that is selectable from a plurality of deployment proposals generated by the SDM; select the deployment engine based on a software type of the SDA, and a target computer type from the SDA; perform the deployment of the at least one component of software in the SDA to the computer system according to the software type and the deployment parameters, and based on the deployment configuration and the deployment engine; and maintain a repository containing a list of SDAs and products installed on the computer system, the repository further containing a fingerprint of every file used in applications running on the computer system at the time of the deployment.