MTS ( Microsoft Transaction monitor ) is a Transaction Monitor and an Object Request Broker in one box. It comes free with all flavors of NT and may well be in all flavors of Windows in the next year.
MTS is needed to have easily distributed applications using COM. Without it, DCOM is a continuous headache of juggling code and communications between objects.
MTS is a brilliant way to manage COM objects, groups of objects, and components - the book is a deconstruction of how it achieves this.
ATL took hold of Richard while he was part of a team developing a COM-based workflow system. Its elegance and symplicity had a lasting effect on him. Now, although Richard does not live an obsessively pure COM lifestyle, he finds that ATL gives him more time to enjoy his garden. Richard writes and advises on COM and ATL, and can be contacted via email at atl.dev@grimes.demon.co.uk.