TAO is a standards-compliant, real-time implementation of CORBA that provides efficient, predictable, and scalable quality of service (QoS) end-to-end. Unlike conventional implementations of CORBA, which are inefficient, unpredictable, non-scalable, and often non-portable, TAO applies the best software practices and patterns to automate the delivery of high-performance and real-time QoS to distributed applications.