How many people really use COM+/.NET EnterpriseServices?

I am learning about COM+ and EnterpriseServices. I came across the complete list of COM+ services on MSDN and read every one of them.

The sheer volume of this awed me. On the surface, it seems to be a really advanced system unmatched by other development platforms. Concepts like pooling, synchronization and remoting seem really useful and they've standardized a way to do it.

On the other hand, mentions of COM+/Enterprise开发者_如何学CServices on the net is surprisingly scarce. When I typed the title here in SO, almost all the related questions have 0 answers (hopefully this won't become one of them). I have a feeling that all these facilities are in fact mainly used by MS to implement IIS. But they published it for some marketing buzz.

Do you have any real experience using these services? Are they just some over-architectured nuisance or did you have experience where they turned to be real time savers?

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1. COM services don't work through firewalls (except for the SOAP services).

2. COM+ is designed primarily for Microsoft Visual C++ and Microsoft Visual Basic developers

3. COM+ is an older technology (i.e. it is not the flavor of the week).

The link at the bottom of this page (linking to a video explaining the new features in COM+ 1.5) no longer works.

Dig into COM long enough, and you will stumble into the reasons .NET took over the COM world.

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COM+ services are somewhat dated, in the sense that there are more modern ways to do most of what COM+ does.

On the other hand, one can use .NET to create COM+ services, so it's not dead yet.

BTW, why are you learning about COM+?