Third party software component
The term third party software component refers to a reusable software component that was developed to be either freely distributed or sold by an entity (i.e. company, individual, etc.) other than the original vendor of the development platform.
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The most notable development platform for use of third party software components is Microsoft Visual Basic as it spawned the first commerically viable market for reusable software components. Visual Basic's first extensibility mechanism was the specification for the VBX custom controls.
In version 4.0 of Visual Basic the OCX custom control was introduced to phase out the VBX, and OCX files were later renamed ActiveX by Microsoft's developer marketing group.
In version 7.0 of Visual Basic, otherwise known as VB.NET, Microsoft introduced the .NET Component to replace both VBX and ActiveX although it was still possible to use many ActiveX components in VB.NET by "wrapping" them with a .NET layer.
Clearly other platforms and development environments now have reusable software components as well, and those include:
The following is a list of several of the best known third party component vendors and resellers:
Microsoft's Windows platform
Other software platforms
See Also (technologies):
External links
