Microsoft's COM (Component Object Model) is both the key to Microsoft's Internet strategy and the technology for interaction among Microsoft's applications, such as editing a spreadsheet from within a word processor. This work shows how to use COM to create software objects and build applications quickly. It provides an overview of COM technology using real-world examples spanning the entire range of COM techniques such as: using COM API; using Microsoft Foundation Classes for C COM; using ATL (the Actve Template Library) for COM, RPC (Remote Procedure Calls); and COM+ (the C++ wrapper library for COM methods). The companion CD-ROM includes source code for all of the examples and a "SampleWizard" utility which enables the user to insert interactively the examples into applications.