I tried a basic example provided by php programming manual:

1. $word=new COM("word.application") or die("Cannot start 2. word for you"); 
3. print "Loaded word version ($word->Version)\n"; 
4. $word-visible =1 ; 
5. $word->Documents->Add(); 
6. $word->Selection->Typetext("Dit is een test"); 
7. $word->Documents[1]->SaveAs("burb ofzo.doc"); 
8. $word->Quit();

I get an error prompt on line 4 (memory access fault).

I think COM support is very weak...