From an information-technology perspective, WebObjects is a scalable, high-availability, high-performance application server. From the viewpoint of a developer, though, WebObjects is an extensible object-oriented platform upon which you can rapidly develop and deploy applications that integrate existing data and systems. WebObjects allows you to build applications that leverage the connectivity that the Internet or an intranet provide using the client-server paradigm.
The Web was created to simplify access to electronically published documents. Originally just static text pages with hyperlinks to other documents, Web pages quickly evolved into highly graphical animated presentations. Along the way, a degree of interactivity was introduced, allowing people browsing the Web to fill out forms and thereby supply data to the server.
WebObjects allows you to take the next logical step. With it, you can produce full-fledged applications for use either across the Internet or within a corporate intranet. These applications can be Web-based, and thus accessible through a Web browser, or can have the full interactivity of a stand-alone desktop application.