Your company is starting to realize that its mainstay 1997-era COM/ATL/MFC desktop app is looking a little long in the tooth. Ditto the enterprise web offering. Time to re-architect: bring services to the desktop, and smart client capabilities to the enterprise on a common architecture. Maybe we could even get rid of some of those COM layers. A man can dream, can't he? If your present or near future includes Indigo, Avalon, domain specific languages, C++/CLI and lots of legacy C++ and COM, you will find kindred spirits here.