COM

COM is a technology that allows defining software components so that they can be used from a variety of programming languages. It allows components to be used from the same process, from a different process and also from a process running on a remote computer.

Advantages

• Language independence
• Very good support - many Microsoft technologies (Office, IE) still rely massively on COM
• Seamless usage from more modern technologies, such as .NET

Disadvantages

• Complex implementation
• Memory management is reference counted, which means circular references can cause issues
• Global registry information storage can cause problems with different versions of the components

Derived technologies

• ActiveX
• COM+
• DCOM
• OLE
• OLE Automation

Development tools

• Microsoft Visual Studio
• C++