COM is Microsoft's framework for developing and supporting program component objects. It is aimed at providing similar capabilities to those defined in the Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA), a framework for the interoperability of distributed objects in a network that is supported by other major companies in the computer industry. Whereas Microsoft's Object Linking and Embedding provides services for the compound document that users see on their display, COM provides the underlying services of interface negotiation, life cycle management (determining when an object can be removed from a system), licensing, and event services (putting one object into service as the result of an event that has happened to another object).

COM includes COM+, Distributed Component Object Model (DCOM), and ActiveX interfaces and programming tools.