The CORBA connection

Over the years, there has been a steady move in the direction of buying software off the shelf and customizing it. In fact, software costs as a percentage of the total system costs are increasing as compared to hardware costs. However, the various software applications in a typical system generally do not communicate with each other, and even if they do, it is minimal. Further, the cost of developing and maintaining software is skyrocketing. Techniques ranging from structured programming and modular programming to object-oriented programming have been proposed both to reduce software cost and to promote software reuse. While object-oriented programming has resulted in considerable software reuse and cost reduction, it is still not enough. More work is needed to realize the ultimate dream of buying software com-