(Put differently: The argument is nonsense)
Perhaps you were installing an older version?
COM is not only proprietary but also a horrible thing. I don't see it ever being on any Linux list of things to do.
It will never install on Linux.
If you want something as good as Visual Studio on Linux, write it.
Does anything exist on other platforms like Mac OSX and Linux? CORBA was written all over the place GNOME1 / 2 time as I recall but I don't actually know if anything like COM exists anywhere?
Thanks.
In particular, XPCOM allows easy binding with the Spidermonkey JS runtime so you can expose things to scripts.
How many Windows Phone apps does Google have? Zero. What about Apple? Zero. In fact, Google has even refused to allow Windows Phone to access Youtube and Maps on the web. They specifically blocked the user agent for their website.
But no, that one example from Microsoft is totally relevant. Their competitors are much more open.