RE: [xml-dev] Article on nytimes.com about Microsoft

["Alexander Philippou" <alex@noemax.com>]

Michael Champion wrote:
> If performance/scalability/bandwidth conservation is the primary value 
> to consider, use whatever technology your platform offers that is 
> optimized for the application scenario you have.  For web services on 
> .NET, that's WCF's format.

No, Fast Infoset is considerably more compact than WCF's format (again see
http://www.noemax.com/products/fastinfoset/size_comparisons.html) so FI is a
better choice for improving WS performance. And it conforms to an ISO/ITU-T
standard, and can be used with any WCF transport (Http, NetTcp, Soap/Tcp),
and is interoperable with Java and other platforms. IMO for anyone willing
to spend some $ to buy a component it makes much more sense to use FI
instead of WCF's format.

> I do know that we don't consider the WCF wire format a rival to FI or 
> EXI in interop scenarios.  We do want to make .NET the best platform 
> on which to develop and deploy web services, but XML parsing 
> efficiency is a small part of that, and the framework can easily 
> support FI or EXI if one of them emerges as an interoperability 
> standard.

FI not being shipped within .NET does not reduce the fact that FI actually
is supported as an integral part of the framework. .NET is exactly that -- a
framework -- and as such it is open to new technologies being plugged into
it without forcing them on MS. Maybe it would be simpler for MS to just
encourage and assist other vendors to provide additional technologies for
.NET. This would relieve MS from standards fighting and would also help .NET
move forward faster.

Alexander