As we ease into the 2nd half of 2002, brace yourself for a slew of announcements about new, .NET-powered CMS applications, most of them originating from companies you've never heard of. While at the top of the market, major CMS vendors are racing to convert Java APIs to SOAP-based web services, the lower end seems to remain in the Microsoft world (with good reason). We can see the value of .NET for the ISV -- it really speeds development time, among other things -- but it is a tougher sell to the small- or mid-sized CMS buyer: what's the real benefit? In fact, for some, .NET could be intimidating...