Follow the Roadmap for XML and SQL Server
Dave Reed, Microsoft's general manager of Data Access and XML Technologies, talks about Microsoft's roadmap for XML and SQL Server.
by Lee Thé
October 2002 Issue
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Dave Reed
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As Microsoft's general manager of Data Access and XML Technologies, Dave Reed runs the SQL Server group's Web data team. He drives the direction of XML and data access, including ADO.NET, MSXML, System.XML (a library that ships in SQL Server), ODBC, OLE DB, MDAC, and the SOAP Toolkit (the native implementation of SOAP). Reed will deliver a keynote address at this year's VSLive! Orlando, where he'll talk about Microsoft's roadmap for XML and SQL Server in the rapidly evolving data landscape. In this interview, Reed gives you a sneak preview of his talk, along with other insights about where XML can (and can't) fit into your enterprise programming models.
VSM: XML represents a vast improvement over flat files for bridging disparate systems and providing self-documenting data. It makes things like Web services possible. XML is entrenched and ubiquitous, and has created a whole aftermarket of tools and expertise. This is all great, but do you think anyone is left out there who doesn't know about XML already?
Reed: It's true that we did a lot of work to make VS.NET (especially ASP.NET) a powerful Web services development environment. We've provided a lot of framework there, and we've provided rich XML support, including the XML Reader. We've gotten a lot of positive feedback about that API. I think if you look at the development community, you'll find a nontrivial number of people building Web services. That number is probably larger than you or I would guess—but it's still not the majority. So to the majority still not building Web services, we need to say that even if you're not building Web services in VS.NET, you're still going to be touching XML in some capacity—in a file format or as the way you obtain a business document through a trading partner. XML is appearing everywhere. Microsoft Office is going to be using the XML file format. We rearchitected it, refactored the APIs to reflect this new reality.
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