XML Overview

Microsoft® Internet Explorer 5 Beta features significant updates to the XML-related components offered in previous beta releases and Internet Explorer 4.0. This release supports the following key features.

Direct browsing of native XML	The Microsoft XML implementation lets users view XML using XSL or cascading style sheets with their Web browser, just as they view HTML documents. For more information, see Direct Browsing of XML Files.
High-performance, validating XML engine	The XML engine familiar to Internet Explorer 4.0 developers has been substantially enhanced and fully supports W3C XML 1.0 and Namespaces in XML , which let developers qualify element names uniquely on the Web and thus avoid conflicts between elements with the same name. Native XML support in Microsoft® Windows® means that developers can count on the full XML processing capabilities being present to read and manipulate the data they move between their applications and components.
Extensible Style Language (XSL) support	With the Microsoft XSL processor, based on the latest W3C XSL working draft , developers can apply style sheets to XML data and display the data in a dynamic and flexible way that can be customized easily. The pattern-matching capabilities of the Microsoft XSL processor also allow developers to programmatically find and extract information within an XML data set on the client or the server. For more information, see XSL Reference.
XML Schema	Schemas define the rules of an XML document, including element names and rich data types, which elements can appear in combination, and which attributes are available for each element. To enable multi-tier applications, Microsoft will be releasing a technology preview for XML Schema based on the XML-Data and other schema submissions to the W3C XML working group. For more information, see XML Schema Preview.
Server-side XML	Server-side XML processing allows XML to be used as a standard means of passing data between multiple distributed application servers—even across operating system boundaries.
XML Document Object Model (DOM)	The DOM is a standard object application programming interface that gives developers programmatic control of XML document content, structure, formats, and more. The Microsoft XML implementation includes full support for the W3C XML DOM Recommendation and is accessible from script, the Visual Basic® development system, C++, and other languages. For more information, see XML DOM Reference.

Microsoft is actively involved in defining the emerging XML standard and will continue to implement XML as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). W3C is a platform-neutral and vendor-neutral global organization that oversees standardization of World Wide Web technologies, including XML. A co-founder of the W3C's XML working group, Microsoft enjoys broad support for its efforts from many participants in the open W3C process.