xml-dev - RE: XML in .NET - more than just SOAP?

[Chris Lovett <clovett@microsoft.com>]

Let me correct some mis-information floating around this thread. 

Office 2000 has never claimed to be an "XML" authoring tool.  The
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?URL=/library/officedev/ofxml2k
/ofxml2k.htm page says:

"Microsoft Office 2000 supports Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) as a native
file format. Using HTML, Office documents and data can be stored,
distributed, and presented in a format that can be viewed using most Web
browsers, while retaining the rich content and functionality of Office
documents stored using the traditional companion binary file formats."

Office 2000 generates a flavor of HTML that "can be viewed using mose Web
browsers".  This is the stated goal, nothing more.  

Office 2000 does NOT generate XHTML, but as some have noted, it does consume
it ok.
Office 2000 does NOT generate XML.  
Office 2000 is not "broken".

General XML authoring was not a stated goal.  It does however embed some
islands of well-formed XML inside the HTML pages.  This is intended for
Office use only.  If you can figure out how to post-process the HTML to
extract and manipulate this XML then more power to you.

The Office team has not stated any future goals about turning Office into a
general XML authoring tool, but there are plenty of ways you can voice your
opinion on this subject.  See
http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/technical/community.asp.

Chris Lovett
Program Manager
WebData Team
Microsoft.