Is there a viable counterpart to DCOM in .NET?

Question

I know .net has WCF, which I believe was touted as the replacement for COM when it was codenamed Indigo(?) - but is it actually suitable for use in a .NET app, providing the same functionality as a C++/DCOM application?

A DCOM app on a client-server system can be a pain, but I think it's quite efficient compared to other options like web-services - which have other issues anyway.

So, is WCF a true successor to (D)COM or does it have different aims?

EDIT: I'm talking specifically about distributed apps and remote controlling - e.g a server can cause a dialog to launch on a workstation, workstations can call methods on the server to send it responses, etc. I added the 'D' to my title accordingly.

Answer 1

WCF has never been meant to be a replacement for COM. The .NET framework itself is the replacement of COM.

WCF is meant to deliver a common interface for writing client/server applications such as SOAP web services and remoting applications independently of the protocol/transport/serialization mechanism used.

Answer 2

You can use WCF very efficiently by choosing the right behavior / serialization / protocol. Actually using COM/DCOM with dot-net will be less efficient today b/c of passing from dot net to com is slow.