Having "legacy" applications written in COM or .NET does not
necessarily mean you *HAVE* to choose Microsoft technologies for future
development. There is a great deal of interop middleware out there
which allows you to expand your infrastructure with a different
technology without losing the ability to communicate with your old
Microsoft apps (or vice versa). J-Integra is one example of a
middleware solution which provides interoperability between COM/.NET
and Java/Corba.
Shane Sauer
J-Integra Interoperability Solutions
http://j-integra.intrinsyc.com/
high performance interop middleware for java, corba, com & .net