>>Even in the niche you describe I'd be watching mobile closely: by 2013 some device manufacturers say they'll be able to cast a private interactive virtual 3D screen up to 100" across, providing far greater design benefits than a 20" fixed screen. At which point tabs and other traditional Graphic user interface concepts will be a PITA and customer device choices may cost you a fortune if you're locked into a minority platform.

This application reduced design and estimating time from an average of 6 hours to less than an hour in most cases. That marketing edge has already shown an uptick in sales. Costly design errors have been completely eliminated.

It also took several hours out of the manufacturing and shipping process for each unit.

Some slick but simple .NET addon document-handling tools I found allowed the customer to reduce paper-handling to the extent that over 1000 ft of prime Long Island office space, previously used for filing cabinets was given back to the landlord.
That wiped out over $35K in annual rental, hundreds of hours of filing and handling, and the annual consumption of tons of paper.

I was able to find those tools because of the vast number of developers working around the world under the .NETumbrella.

There were NO HW or O/S costs- it runs on existing HW and software- another good reason to use MS tools.

By 2013, if he chooses, this customer can throw this app out and rewrite it in whatever language he chooses and will still be miles ahead of where he'd be if he had done nothing.

This is no "niche." This is happening every day in small to medium sized businesses around the world as they seek to become more competitive and cost effective in a tight economy and its's only possible because of the marvellous HW/Software platform that MS has put together.

Are you really suggesting that I should even think about telling customers like this one to wait because by 2013 there MIGHT be a better way to do this?????