You can develop a custom class user object containing business logic in PowerBuilder and then package the object as a COM server or COM+ application.
On platforms that support COM+, such as Windows 2000 and Windows XP, you can build COM+ applications and deploy them to COM+.
The rest of this chapter uses the term COM components to refer to components that support COM and COM+.
A PowerBuilder COM application can include one or more PowerBuilder custom class user objects. You code the user objects in the User Object painter and then build the server in the Project painter. You can also deploy the application directly to a local COM+ server or create a COM+ Microsoft Installer package from the Project painter.
Once you have generated and deployed a PowerBuilder COM application, users can call methods on the PowerBuilder objects it contains from COM-enabled client applications built with tools such as PowerBuilder, Visual Basic, and C++ compilers.
