The development of a Meteorological Workstation System is a very expensive venture. Therefore Germany, Switzerland, Denmark and Canada have teamed up to be able to accomplish this task. This talk will highlight the technical prerequisites of a generic workstation that can be integrated easily in the environment of the project partners. Key design principles of the NinJo project are portability, a flexible programming model, generic frameworks, and easily manageable data sources. The success of an international workstation project not only depends on the technical design but also on the management of the whole process. We will present our experience with the management of a distributed, international project.