Good article!

We are thinking that at some stage we would let people sync data from our doc management system (normally hosted on a server at the customer's premises) with people's laptops so that they can make changes and then "merge" them when they come back.

It is stories like this that make me wonder if it is worth the trouble.  Has anyone had lots of experience with this sort of environment? - bear in mind that a lot of the people with the laptops will be doctors (not very technically mined and not usually patient to wait for things to complete) 

Is it easier to "roll your own" for some of these things?