Let me chime in here. Corba in concept was/is a good idea. The problem
that it has is with regards to the client and server "contract". The
synchronization between the two sides is rather rigid which is why CORBA had
problems getting ubiquity in the marketplace.
SOAP is more than a buzzword. It is as real as CORBA (in terms of ISO
status) and has the ability to self-describe it's contract at run-time (via
WSDL, UDDI, etc). The transport was not firewall friendly and quickly lost
steam because of that one limitation alone.
For better or worse, the world is moving to SOAP and I highly recommend that
we stay closely aligned with that momentum. We may have the technical "high
ground" with CORBA, but no one will care if they can't hook up their SOAP
enabled systems they are rolling out as we speak.