Stephen Downes summarizes an interesting discussion on the cc-education list: A Voice in The Void: "It is going to be important for those who promote open access to think of the content infrastructure as an interconnected network extending from the author directly through to the user's desktop applications..."
I'm not a huge fan of tight integration - it too quickly leads to a one way mentality...which in turn, stifles innovation. Think of how many institutions use Microsoft products simply because they are supposed to play well with other (existing) Microsoft applications. The focus is not "what's the best product", but "which product works best with what we already have". Stephen's right to suggest that open source needs to provide an alternative to Microsoft's content distribution aspirations.