1. A system for developing an intelligent agent-based software application in a multi-platform integrated development environment comprising: a computing system having at least one processor, at least one memory coupled to said processor, and an operating construct stored in said memory operable to execute a set of steps on said processor; one or more libraries for use in developing said intelligent agent-based software application stored in said computing system, said libraries comprising software components, tools, algorithms and protocols, wherein said libraries are accessible via application programming interfaces, human-computer interactions, security, and data accesses; at least one generic software component which is oriented to application-independent functionality, which is represented and stored in said memory as a generic root product node of a product lattice network, and which is used in developing said intelligent agent-based software application; one or more specialized software components which are more specialized and application-specific than said generic software component, which inherit all of the functions and capabilities of said generic software component, which are represented and stored in said memory as one or more child nodes of said generic root product node in said lattice network, wherein at least one of said specialized software components comprises one or more intelligent agents, and wherein said specialized software components are used in developing said intelligent agent-based software application; and one or more further-specialized software components which are progressively and recursively more specialized and application-specific than said specialized software component, which inherit all of the functions and capabilities of said specialized software component, which are represented and stored in said memory as child nodes of at least one or more of said specialized software components and said root product node in said lattice network, and wherein at least one of said further-specialized software components comprises one or more intelligent agents.