I am glad you joined the conversation. Actually you are right, EAI is a two faces coin. As a matter of fact vendors are conservative, and they tend to be in the early majority.

The Colosseum wasn’t built in one day, nad even Microsoft spent time and energy to build its Office System partnerships network.

What I have learned volunteering for years is that communities can help a lot, and IT vendors are paying more and more attention to what people say, especially if they are bloggers under the radar.

We can make a difference, but Sun has to play its role, and they have good reasons to do it, before others like IBM will likely do..

I would rather point my fingers of those Microsoft Business Partners, that provide customers with no choise (as to select Microsoft Office).

First step will be the customers to ask their business software providers if they can deliver a solution without vendor lock-in.