thanks for your answer Rick!

however, it seems to me that components can still be stateless if properties are used. it's when you set some properties at the "Init" event. if setComplete() or setAbort() is used in every function then all other properties that have been set by some earlier function call are set to default. but the properties set at Init() remain because init is actually called every time i use some function of my component. that's the impression i have got from some testing anyway.

we haven't managed to make our mind about what technology to use for Internet enabling our app. the problem is that the main criteria we probably need to consider is performance. this however is quite tricky to predict if you don't have any actual experience.

could anyone tell if COM+ means considerably higher performance cost compared with DCOM, Web services, ISAPI?

thanks!