Good discussion.

Over the last few years, I have worked for a few large companies in the aerospace, entertainment, and real estate industries NONE of which are utilizing COM technologies. This is also true for other companies that I have not worked for but have knowledge of their large projects. While I'm not saying that this is a good representation of reality, the fact remains that incremental change is commonplace for companies with large legacy systems. At least that is my experience / observation. It is also quite frustrating.

I view MS as a large R&D center with a marketing function - unusual combination when you think about it. As such, there has been and will continue to be an implimentaion lag for new technologies. IMO, I think this lag is widening. In many cases, there IS no time for implimentation before something new and better replaces it.

Given a world where the new stuff is implimented as fast as MS churns it out, I agree with everything you say. However, that is not reality.

-Jeff