Thanks for the well-reasoned insightful article.  It does seem obvious,
if you think about it, that the days of the stand-alone do anything PC
are numbered.  PC software companies that aren't prepared to port over
to some sort of server platform will be in a world of hurt.  Actually,
you already see it happening.  Many of the stand-alone applications
(like encyclopaedias, for instance) already have on-line server
versions.  Now if the speed and availability of the on-line software
is improved, there will be no reason to buy a separate piece of PC
software to do what is just as easy on-line.
                        Tom Hula