Re: Com+ and Financial Transactions

[Jeff Wasel <jeffw@blackwhite.com>]

Hi Charles and the list!

COM+ is the third, maybe even 4th attempt to package OLE and the now
defunct Active X into a supposedly "open" distributed architecture or
Common Object Model that facilitates distributed processing accross
disparate platforms. It's a myth. Microsoft has enlisted the leader
Object Request Broker developer, IONA Technologies, to partner with in
creating a bridge between COM and CORBA. Note: a "bridge" not an
integration; it's more a marketing exercise to legimize M$ as a player.
CORBA is a truly open standard developed by concensus (The Object
Management Group OMG- www.omg.org) and owned by no one. It is the
antithesis of the Microsoft model. In selling into the CORBA market,
none of the sophisticated shops I work with even think about COM or COM+
as it is tired, rehashed technology that is still proprietary, and has
no true connectivity accross UNIX, 2 and 3-tier architectures and the
windows world. CORBA is the best hope at the grail of platform
independence, and COM is but another attempt by M$ to co-op and corrupt
a relatively benign, developer-owned design paradigm. 

One great sigh of relief is that the NT bigots can't touch the true
scalability of CORBA-based architecture and the ease of deployment the
strong JAVA connectivity in CORBA 3.0 brings to the table. Full Java
beans, and JDK compatibility are allowing development of both Clients
AND Servers now in Java with CORBA back-ends. The mainframe folks love
CORBA as it gives them a transparent bridge to the traditional client
server world, regardless if it's a Win 95, OS/2 or other client
accessesing the host. CORBA is a Gates-buster, and I would imagine much
of the COM+ f.u.d. feeds on this... 

Jeff Wasel

Charles Behney wrote:
> 
> http://www8.zdnet.com/pcweek/news/0413/13com.html
> 
> PCWEEK has an effusive piece on COM+ features and Microsoft Transaction
> Servers. Can anyone fill us non-programmers in on the basics of what COM
> and these transactions servers represent in the strategic virtual
> universe of Microsoft? What about the other architectures like CORBA and
> the javabeans?
> 
> .............
> .............
> 
> > "I'm used to writing procedures, which is what you're taught in C and
> >               carry forward with C++. [COM+] is different," said Craig Andera, a
> >               systems programmer at GMAC-RCF, in Bloomington, Minn.
> >
> >               "The more you learn, the more you realize that [Microsoft] may have a
> >               better way," Andera added. "But it will take time to get people to come
> >               around to look at how this could be easier."
> >
> >               Microsoft likely will release the beta of COM+ 1.0 concurrently with
> >               Windows NT 5.0 Beta 2, which is due by the end of this quarter.
> >               Microsoft may include a software development kit with the COM+
> >               beta, sources said.
> >
> >               Microsoft plans to provide in-depth previews of both COM+ and NT
> >               5.0 at its TechEd Developers Conference in New Orleans during the
> >               first week of June.
> >
> >               The Redmond, Wash., company is casting COM+ as a component
> >               services architecture featuring event, queuing, security and
> >               load-balancing services, along with an attribute-based programming
> >               model.
> >
> >               All of the services are activated by "interceptors" that monitor
> >               components and determine what services are required.
> >
> .......
> .......
> 
> CAB

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