Another major effort underway by various companies and organizations is the creation of business object frameworks that support specific vertical markets, such as IBM's San Francisco initiative. These are collections or groups of objects that are built to service specific business needs.
For instance, a vendor might build an object framework that encompasses the typical requirements of managing a shop floor in a factory. The vendor can then market their framework to companies who are building shop floor control software. These companies can then base their software development on the pre-existing business objects, extending or modifying them as needed to meet their specific business needs.
It remains to be seen whether this type of object framework will be viable in the marketplace. While many business processes are generally similar from company to company, it is also true that every company is unique. The level of modification required to take a framework and make it useful in a given situation could be quite large, and it could offset the benefits to be gained.