Here is an interesting accout of how things are going in Washington for Microsoft. For one thing: [Microsoft's] government affairs division includes people whose job it is to translate what politicians want into the jargon of software engineers. Improving communication is always good. It is also somewhat unique for Washington.

There seem to be lots of other, perhaps less nurturing, things going on. That certainly isn't unique.

What do you think about a binary XML serialization format? How much of the ubiquity of XML do we owe to text and angle brackets? Does the future success of web services depend on them or on getting rid of them?

Has anyone else run across this (also this)?