COM is primarily used in-process, it exposes an ABI that allows multiple languages to operate on a common object model within the same process. That's why you c

COM is primarily used in-process, it exposes an ABI that allows multiple languages to operate on a common object model within the same process. That's why you can import COM controls into a .Net application by referencing the DLL in your project and work with them as if they were native CLR objects - or Python, Ruby, Perl, etc. for that matter.