This is not the first time the use of XML instead of OLE DB is discussed. They are not disparate as you may think. For example, several people have been using XML strings instead of ADO recordsets for a long time now.

The new concept, or at least to me, is that now MS is openly promoting the use of XML instead of OLE DB. You don't see MS disaccrediting its own technologies quite often.

>Hi!
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>It looks like you (or person in that article) do nto understand the difference between XML and OLE DB. OLE DB is a tool to access data. XML is a protocol (format, markup language) that used for data representation. So, HOW these two completely different things with completely different purposes are comparable from the point of view you described here? Did I missed something?
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>BTW, Latest versions of OLE DB, as far as I know, can return the result sets in the XML format. I don't know if there is an OLE DB provider also o read data from XML string. Does somebody know if it exists? If yes, that, for sure, OLE DB could be a part of the larger cross-platform system, that is used to read and write XML data on the MS Windows OS machines.
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>>I was reading "The XML Files" on MSDN magazine (Sep/2001, page 31) and they say:
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>>"[...]it seems obvious that OLE DB would never become a true universal standard for exposing information because it faced competition from other vendors. Since OLE DB is a COM technology and COM itself never became universally supported across platforms, it never really stood a chance."
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>>Boy this is certainly a surprise to me. MS is openly disaccrediting their own stuff, that "incredible and powerful" technology that they advertised and pushed so much just a few years ago.
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>>The new technology to replace OLE DB accorgind to this article is, of course, XML.
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>>I wonder what MS will say about .NET a few years from now...