>Mono is not doing very well. It seems that the project is losing steam. The open source community has not taken to it very much. There are plenty of reasons. But IMO they are just Microsoft haters.

The biggest problem with Mono is that it didn't have a good IDE. People would use Visual Studio to edit, then compile to Mono. This should be resolved with the recent release of a decent Mono IDE.

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>Yes I've taken a good look at Silverlight. But it still lacks what most are looking for - a complete desktop app in the browser. Just because you call it RIA does not mean it is. Have you reviewed Air/flex2?

Silverlight 2.0 kicks butt. The Deep Zoom stuff is just waaaaaaaaaaaay too cool.

>Cross platform does have issues. But Java seems to found the way. But I have to say I hate the GUI. But it works well.

UI is the biggest issue that I have yet to see a solution for. UI on Windows is different than Mac and it seems every Linux distro has its own shell and none of them look the same.

>GTK seem to have also solved the issues. And I guess QT is also claiming to have solved the issue. In fact KDE now runs under XP. Which I guess pretty good test of QT. That said you still need to consider the special cases like accessing hardware (signature pad etc).
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>As far as Microsoft being a market leader. I need someone to provide something to change my mind - that they are. Every week I see Microsoft getting some group angry. Last the MP3 guys losing the DRM license. The xbox guys losing hd-dvd a couple weeks ago.

That in no way means they aren't the leader. Microsoft has over 90% of the business desktop market and huge percentage of the home market. More Windows mobile phones will be sold this year that Apple and Blackberry combined.

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>I see microsoft leadership eroding weekly. Two years ago I would not have considered using anything but MS Exchange for a mail server. Today I don't even consider it. I install linux mail servers. I can't see paying for MsSQL when I can't see any advantage over Postgres. I can't see paying for office when Open Office can do 95% of what users need. I keep seeing Microsoft losing ground.
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>I see a void as far as a clear leader. Microsoft is falling. I'm not sure if they'll come back - but at the moment they are not leading. But is SUN the leader. I hope not. They haven't done much either. Then it must be Apple. Again I hope not. Everything in Apple is do it Steve's way or go somewhere else. But it's true Apple has doubled it market share in the last year.

If your business model runs that way, then that's great. Whil Hentzen tried it a few years ago and couldn't make it work. He still does Fox work today. But do you really want a clear leader? One that can totally mandate everything? You say you want one, but you don't like Microsoft, Sun, or Apple. I prefer an open market where the consumer can dictate. That's what happened with BluRay and HD-DVD. It wasn't Microsoft's fault that HD-DVD didn't make it. They pushed it hard, but consumers went a different direction.