>Baan, SAP, and others are still pretty expensive. The majority of companies in the US can't afford them.

250K is "cheap" for an "ASAP" solution; SAP et all are following the same strategy as MS is with SQL Server. Same functionality, lower head count.

What's 250K ? About 2 .NET programmers for a year.

>No, it doesn't. Look at BizTalk Server. Look at SOAP. Both are about messaging between incompatable formats. Neither assumes that you'll be starting from scratch. What happens when the supplier is using Baan and the customer is using SAP and they want to electronically exchange purchase order information? EDI is big and ugly. BizTalk and SOAP will make this much easier.

You're confusing "tools" and "applications/solutions".

>That's not quite true. MS has submitted C# to standards committees for approval. Once it's there, it will be open. Some one will make a java version. <
<

Huh ? Someone will make a "Java version" of C# ?

>> MS has also indicated that at some point we may see the CLR running on something other than Windows.<<

Where ? Who ? Linux ? Why in heavens name would they do that ?

>> XML and SOAP are both approved standards by the W3C..that doesn't sound like Windows only to me.

They're "protocols"; they have absolutely no relevance.