Are you with us or against us?
In some cases, XML can either compete with or complement other technologies. For example, Greg Wright, senior systems engineer at Borland suggests that a system running wholly within an intranet could probably be created more quickly using Enterprise JavaBeans and CORBA, but if the same program was being deployed across the Internet, XML could be a better choice as the developer has less control over the entire system.
Kanbay's Boyle took up this theme. "XML is a huge advantage when you have to publish some information and you don't know where it's going to go...all major databases can directly read XML...[but] if you do know the recipient [system] any other method may be suitable."
On the other hand, Damien Bootsma, a Borland system engineer, points out that the company's AppServer application server uses XML to describe the deployment rules for Enterprise JavaBeans. Indeed, a Sun white paper (java.sun.com/xml/b2b.html) states: "XML is fundamental to Sun's plans for the transmission of mission-critical enterprise data and is being used to make Sun's Enterprise JavaBeans technology even more portable."
