Let's turn to the issue at hand: the possible futures of XML as a technology.

We're coming at this today from a technical rather than business perspective, but business aspects will still bear on whatever question we choose. It would be just as reasonable to take a business perspective, in which case technical aspects would also bear on the question. Since we have to choose a starting point, given the way this particular talk was advertised, we'll adopt a technical viewpoint as we frame our question.

Let's cut to the chase and adopt the following very general question:

What will the world of the XML developer look like in 2005, four years from now?

We'll look at this question from a number of different perspectives:

• Application Architectures
• Standards
• Tools
• Employer, customer, and vendor relationships