Russ Bergeron, the General Manager of the SoCal MLS, has elected to run MLS 2000 parallel with their legacy system. That's what they're in the business for. We just want to deliver the data as quickly and as cheaply as possible and the Net is the way to do that. There can be no doubt that a Web based MLS system is the right thing to implement for the members - even though many of the members do not realize it. Although, this is a legitimate concern, it can be easily dismissed.
MLSs make money by charging a monthly fee to the agents for access to their data.
Obviously they will continue to charge these monthly fees when they go to a Web based system. Therefore, to continue charging a monthly fee, passwords will be assigned to all paying members. These passwords are a way to give access on the Web for a member and keep out those who are forbidden to get on the site. This password protected data access is very common. As a matter of fact, many if not most of the Fortune 500 companies have Intranets that only their employees can access on the Web.