The Object Request Broker (ORB) is the middleware that handles the
communication details between distributed objects. The CORBA 2.0 standard,
adopted in December of 1994, defines true interoperability by specifying
how CORBA ORBs from different vendors can communicate using a common
protocol.
ORBs and other CORBA-enabled products are available from a large
number of commercial and non-commercial organisations.