1. An application gateway server for managing communication between an application executing in a runtime environment on a device and at least one backend server; the application gateway server comprising: (a) a message listener for receiving messages from the component applications; (b) a connector subsystem comprising a plurality of connectors, each of the plurality of connectors for communicating with one or more associated backend servers; (c) a messaging subsystem comprising: (i) a message broker for processing messages received from the message listener and transmitting them to an associated one of the plurality of connectors; and (ii) a communication mapping for identifying which of the plurality of connectors is to be used for each message in accordance with an origin of the message.