As I write this, about a month has passed since the Orlando PDC in July 2000. This PDC was easily the best Microsoft conference since the Microsoft® Transaction Server (MTS) PDC in Long Beach in 1996. Both events were significant milestones for Microsoft that laid out the blueprints for fundamentally new platforms and programming models. However, the reason that both PDCs are so memorable for me personally is because I spent a great deal of time at both answering the question: "So does this mean that COM is dead?" My answer at the Long Beach PDC was a resounding no. My answer at this PDC was (to paraphrase Bill Clinton): "It depends on what ..
