Innovation results in more choices, great products and reduced costs. That's why proprietary systems are dead. They are both costly and limited in function. Proprietary systems are great when they're the only option you have. But once an Open System is available, and the Internet is both Open and available, the few costly advantages a proprietary system might have are sure to fade fast.
Innovation is always on the side of competition.
Even the chuckleheads would agree that the MLS Books are dead. In today's world you need a phone line to stay in business. Where a three year contract with a proprietary boat anchor vendor becomes a lifetime sentence for your business, web based technologies instead build on your business lifeline, your connectivity. An IntraNet being defined as a private network. While it is possible to carve out a private section of the InterNet to create a point and click IntraNet, that is hardly what the chuckleheads are doing.