The Mobile Agent (MA) paradigm proposes several attractive solutions to deal with the problems of networkcentric programming. Despite the availability of several MA platforms, there are still only a few MA-based distributed services. The paper claims that the lack of interoperability is one of the major obstacles to the largescale diffusion of the MA paradigm, and discusses solutions to permit the interworking between heterogeneous MA frameworks and other systems, whether MA-based or not, via compliance with either accepted or emerging interoperability standards. In particular, we focus on compliance with CORBA, the accepted standard for OO components, but also with MASIF and FIPA, respectively, the OMG specification for the support of agent mobility and management, and the framework for standard languages and protocols in agent communication. The paper also reports performance results of CORBA-based interoperability in the SOMA programming framework: the presented costs, measured for...