A loosely defined set of technologies developed by
Microsoft for sharing information among different
applications. ActiveX is an outgrowth of two other Microsoft technologies called
OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) and
COM (Component Object Model). As a moniker,
ActiveX can be very confusing because it applies to a whole set of COM-based technologies. Most people, however, think only of
ActiveX controls, which represent a specific way of implementing ActiveX technologies.