In Computing, What does Active X mean?

What does Active X mean?
 

ActiveX was created by Microsoft that enables various software applications to share information and functions.  ActiveX only works with Microsoft applications.  Specifically applications like Word, Excel, Internet Explorer and PowerPoint and they only work on computers that are running a Windows based operating system. 

This has save software engineers at Microsoft time and work from having to re-create whole software programs from scratch over and over again.  They quickly realized that incorporating like functions across software platforms would save a lot of programming time.  Functions like spell checker that is used in a word processing program like "Microsoft Word", can also be used in "Microsoft Outlook Express", an email application.

Instead of writing two separate versions of code for the same spell checker, they created a spell checker object or "applet".  When any Windows application needs the spell checking functionality, it calls on the spell checking "applet".

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