COM is a powerful and ubiquitous technology that enables applications to interoperate in a wide variety of ways. Though imperfect, COM addressed a number of the shortcomings in the technologies that preceded it. Thanks to the sp_OA procedures, Transact-SQL can access COM object interfaces exposed by other applications and even by SQL Server itself, such as SQL-DMO. By combining the power of a relational database with the flexibility and ubiquity of COM, you can build applications that are very powerful indeed.