Microsoft SQL Server XML Technology Preview

From Microsoft:

Microsoft is tightly integrating XML into the SQL Server relational database management system (RDBMS) to help developers build the next generation of Web and Enterprise applications. To start off this process, Microsoft has released a technology preview that provides XML integration with and direct URL access to SQL Server 7.0. This allows queries to be sent directly to SQL Server 7.0 via a URL with the results returned as XML formatted documents. The next version of SQL Server, code named Shiloh, will be fully XML-enabled and will include a superset of the features available in the technology preview for SQL Server 7.0. SQL Server Shiloh will be available in mid-2000. This Microsoft SQL Server XML Technology Preview demonstrates XML capabilities using SQL Server and Internet Information Server (IIS). It is an IIS ISAPI extension that provides HTTP access to SQL Server and XML data formatting and updating capabilities.