What's best about .NET? MS is bringing the same "paradigm" from the client to their web services. This might give MS a leg up on the server side, but well programmed replacements for their "uplevel-specific" controls that aim for alternative OS browsers [as well as Windows browsers] mean that you're only one .NET server from bringing MS sellouts into an alternative OS world. One of the reasons MS is so successful is b/c it has so many programmers. Now, thanks to .NET, those programmers aren't tied in to MS clients to get across expected functionality.