First: my mantra: Data belongs to the organization, not the application... if the app fails and data is accessible then we all go on - if the data fails or is locked away - what was the point of the app again?

In a SQL database then data is understood by the organisation, DBAs and data architects. If left to app developers taking an app-centric approach to data... I get nervous quickly.

So long as the data is just as definable and accessible as current SQL databases then all good - give me an app with some odd-ball storage then it is bye-bye.

I recently had the misfortune of trying to get a couple of newbies started on Windows-XP, they were lost - completely lost, as lost as anything I've seen when teaching somebody Apple (not OS-X), Windows 3.11, DOS, Linux, OS/2. Had I put them in front of Gnome I doubt it would have been any different - no worse no better - I would still be drawing icons and writing cheat-sheets for them.

In reality it seems to me to be more to do with the user grasping the key concepts - and those haven't changed in a LONG time. (and a bit of eye-candy for the shop floor and sales brouchers - but that's easy)

Microsoft has convinced everyone they're OSes are the easiest to learn, have the most apps etc etc. Nup, I say it's all in the marketing - and some of the best of us have swallowed it. (and see plenty of previous discussions on the importance of Linux and marketing).