request for messages from a topic can be received from a subscriber in block 314 subtopics for the topic can be located and in block 316 individual retrieval threads can be established with the subscriber for each subtopic in block 318 the messages in each subtopic can be forwarded to the subscriber thus multiple threads can be used to distribute messages to a subscriber from within a single topic the present invention can be realized in hardware software or a combination of hardware and software an implementation of the method and system of the present invention can be realized in a centralized fashion in one computer system or in a distributed fashion where different elements are spread across several interconnected computer systems any kind of computer system or other apparatus adapted for carrying out the methods described herein is suited to perform the functions described herein a typical combination of hardware and software could be a general purpose computer system with a computer program that when being loaded and executed controls the computer system such that it carries out the methods described herein the present invention can also be embedded in a computer program product which comprises all the features enabling the implementation of the methods described herein and which when loaded in a computer system is able to carry out.