OME software is designed to support the management, visualization and analysis of large, complex image data sets. The OME and OMERO Servers were built with different requirements and goals.
The short answer is that OMERO and OME are separate systems, with neither replacing or subsuming the other. OME is a robust and mature environment for server-side analysis and client-side interaction via XML-RPC, whereas OMERO is a new server with a focus on fast client- server communication and new applications that support client-side import, visualization and management of complex sets of image data. No image analysis is supported yet in OMERO.
In the short term, consider the OME server (OMEIS/OMEDS), since it is released, whereas OMERO is still in Beta (see OMERO Roadmap). In the medium term, the answer is that it depends on your needs ("one size does not fit all"). If you want to focus on server-side analysis with a powerful infrastructure for dynamic typing, use the OME Server. If you want to integrate MATLAB functions into your data management server, then use the OME Server. If you want a simple tool for image visualization and data management, then either OMERO or OME will work. If you want to use a remote application on a laptop to and get high-speed visualisation of your images on a server, use OMERO. If you want to develop rich client applications with fast client-server interaction, then use OMERO (see OMERO docs).
Sure! We have published papers and a series of tutorials that should help you see what these tools can do.