A computer system (100) enables real-time business event monitoring and tracking by means of a client-server computer asynchronously acquiring (110) physical event data from a variety of network-connected (105) data collection devices (102), processing the event data on the basis of the knowledge and history of previous events, and analyzing the event data using business logic/rules, filters, and/or other criteria to identify (115) “significant” business events for real-time communication to a network (120) of clients (122). The system (100) is bi-directional in that it also receives business information requests from the clients (122) and processes the requests in the light of the knowledge and history of previous client requests to generate a plurality of device-specific control commands for execution on one or more of the data collection devices (102).