Many intellectual, societal, business and technological forces are continuously pushing forward the frontiers of science. When being combined effectively, they may provide an umbrella for generating new fields and exploring new grounds. One such emerging field is eMaintenance. It is based on the fields from operation & maintenance engineering, software engineering, information systems, business management, and a myriad of strongly varying fields related to the application domains of eMaintenance. As a novel field, eMaintenance addresses new needs and provides various benefits in form of increased availability, reduced lifecycle cost and increased customer-value. On the other hand, being in a continuous flux, it suffers from many infant illnesses in form of lack of or fuzzy definitions and theoretical foundations. This paper explores the domain of eMaintenance. In striving toward that end, it defines the eMaintenance concept by identifying its essential constituents and characteristics, mapping out its application domains and by eliciting its intellectual opportunities and challenges. Finally, the paper reasons about the future of eMaintenance as an emerging field and identifies research questions that may serve as the impetus for defining future research strategies. Last but not least, it lists challenges to be met by the organizations transferring to eMainteannce and advocates to the eMaintenance community to further elaborate and improve the eMaintenance concept.