With a view to making it easier for developers to build Component Object Model programming languages, Microsoft Corp is expected to unveil COM3 at the Professional Developers Conference in San Diego next month. The software giant has confirmed that a release of the new product is due shortly, but it has declined to reveal any details as to what it will contain. The company apparently wants to enable the building of COM objects in as many languages as possible, but it has confirmed that it will be building on its existing COM offerings, and will not revolutionize the package. Speculation suggests COM3 will contain some kind of universal virtual machine that will enable developers to build applications out of components from languages that include Java and C++, among others, but will ignore Corba. However, it is unlikely that Microsoft will embrace Java with the passion that some organizations have. Analysts believe the company takes the view that Java is fine as a language, but not as a platform as it is in direct competition with Windows.
