DEC and Hewlett-Packard Co say they will provide implementations of Microsoft Corp’s COM component object model – including its DCOM distributed features – up on Digital Unix, OpenVMS and Windows NT on Alpha systems, and upon HP-UX, within a year. It’s not clear exactly how the companies are going to achieve their aim, whether they’ll use a third party such as Software AG’s Microsoft-endorsed implementation of DCOM on non-Redmond platforms (CI No 3,114), or an implementation of specifications that are supposed to be made available through Microsoft’s quasi- ActiveX standardization effort, Active Group, being hosted by The Open Group. Microsoft has already endorsed HP’s recent submission to Part B of the Object Management Group’s long-standing, long- fought COM- to-Corba interoperability request for proposal (CI No 3,120), while DEC has provided ActiveX access to Corba objects within the ObjectBroker object request broker it recently sold to BEA Systems Inc.