  We define a new local invariant (called degeneracy) associated to a triple
(M,M',H), where M and M' are real submanifolds of C^N and C^N', respectively,
and H: M->M' is either a holomorphic map, a formal holomorphic map, or a smooth
CR-map. We use this invariant to find sufficient conditions under which finite
jet dependence, convergence and algebraicity results hold.
