Microsoft developed COM as its programming paradigm for component-based application development. COM defines a set of principles to achieve three goals: encapsulation, polymorphism, and inheritance. In addition, COM provides a structure which facilitates distribution and avoids the problems associated with reusing components.
As an IIS component developer, you need to understand some basic COM concepts. Microsoft provides many resources which describe COM. The topics below present some of the major concepts that you will need to master, along with references to resources so that you can learn more.