What is the net of new economic efficiencies?

The New York Times > Technology > Ambitious Package to Raise Productivity (and Microsoft's Profit). While I'm sure MS Office does increase worker productivity and creates untold efficiencies (as this article outlines), I think it would be fascinating to understand how these new efficiences translate for the U.S. economy over time. During the .com era we anticipated that valuations corresponded to value, but the collapse of the NASDAQ contradicted that. Could it be that the real potential was to early to have created those valuations, but over a long period of time they would be realized for the U.S. economy. I would guess that it's possible if not probably. I'd be curious to learn what the macro-economics of efficiencies born of digital productivity tools, internet exchanges and commerce (ebay, amazon, craigslist), online services and information processing (to name a few). In the last five years we have seen a fundamental re-structructuring of our national infrastructure through the deployment of these technologies. How far out is the net economic benefit?

Alan Greenspan gave a speech on this subject at the height of the .com boom. It may be that the net of these efficiencies are realized in the same was as punctuated equilibrium (definition from the www.wikipedia.org).

Thomas Friedman is currently taking time off as staff editorial writer for the New York Times to write a new book on the economic threat to our National Security from India and China. As they agressively pursue and commit their resources to economic growth and opportunity we focus on waging military campaigns. How will this tip the global balance and who will benefit most from the U.S. innovations and efficiencies created in the past decade?