Microsoft has sort of been working on this for decades. It started as Dynamic Data Exchange in Windows 3.x, then evolved into Object Linking and Embedding and C

Microsoft has sort of been working on this for decades. It started as Dynamic Data Exchange in Windows 3.x, then evolved into Object Linking and Embedding and Component Object Model, which in turn became the basis for ActiveX, Distributed COM, and COM+. Reactions vary. I believe GNOME was originally envisioned as providing a GNU framework for this kind of functionality (whence the "Object Model Environment" in the original acronym expansion), but I think those particular ambitions have mostly been abandoned.