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Microsoft will show developers how eXtensible Markup Language lies at the heart of future Windows operations on the Web when they gather in Seattle this week for a by-invitation-only gathering called Forum 2000, said informed sources.

The Forum has been called to give Microsoft chance to sketch out its Next-Generation Windows Services (NGWS), the direction in which it plans to move to take its technology set beyond the Windows desktop onto the Internet. "Microsoft views XML documents as little, petite databases," which a business system may query when they arrive at its Web server, said Barbara Bouldin, chief technology officer at infoShark, an XML vendor. If the receiving system finds data that it needs, identified by XML tags, it can initiate operations with the data to further an electronic commerce exchange, she said.

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