Bravo. Such a great book. However, what I've found in my own attempts to deploy that book into the midst of strident belief is this: you cannot reason someone out of a position that they did not reason themselves into. I'm not suggesting it's entirely futile, but it is a very hard thing to do. I did, not too long ago, actually get an 'earth is 6,000 years old' believer to reevaluate and eventually reject that claim, but that is a rare thing, and I'm not sure the belief was that strong to begin with. If you have not read that book, treat yourself to a very nice read on the foundations of science and skepticism, among other things.

-- they made it possible for a business to conduct complete workflow thru their software, from beginning to end

that is a critical insight; I think in the coming years, we're really going to see MS get thrashed. they have been a dominant player for a long time now .... too long.

in terms of corporate life-cycles, they have already peaked. web 2.0 stuff is going to clobber them; ajax and ajax-like technologies are just the beginning of a new wave of thin(ner) clients, which will make software 'suites' far less potent than in the past.

recall the dominance of "network television"; microsoft belongs to that family of companies that is literally leaching off of a particular economic and cultural inertia. it's just a matter of time until redmond's hegemony takes a precipitous decline.