XML Trailblazers Win Awards

This year's XML cup winners are Jean Paoli, a senior director of XML architecture at Microsoft, and Robin Cover, editor of XML-focused online publication The Cover Pages.

WASHINGTON—Two major contributors to the XML community were awarded for their efforts to improve and promote the technology at the XML 2004 conference here Tuesday.

The Alexandria, Va.-based International Digital Enterprise Alliance, known as IDEAlliance, awarded the XML Cup 2004 to Jean Paoli, a senior director of XML architecture at Microsoft Corp.; and Robin Cover, managing editor of The Cover Pages, an XML-focused online publication hosted by OASIS (the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards).

Paoli and Cover join a list of prominent XML supporters and technologists that have won the award since its inception in 2001. Last year, Adam Bosworth, now vice president of engineering at Google, won an XML Cup.

And in 2002, Jon Bosak and Tim Bray, both Sun Microsystems engineers and both members of the initial XML 1.0 technical committee that produced the language specification, won XML Cup awards.

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This years winners are "two people who lived with XML since it became XML" and who "saw what needed to be accomplished and they accomplished it," Lauren Wood, a consultant at Vancouver, British Columbia-based Textuality Services Inc. and chairwoman of the XML 2004 conference, said while announcing the awards.

Click here for a column on cutting and sewing with XML.

Wood said Cover "developed an online reference work with links all about XML," while Paoli "had a vision of XML on the desktop and worked with a large number of people and a large number of companies to expand on that vision."

In accepting his award, Cover said, "It has been a pleasure to chronicle the progress of SGML [Standard Generalized Markup Language] and XML for over 20 years."

Cover seemed to be a humble winner. "The truth is that a lot of people deserve the IDEAlliance XML Cup more than I," Cover told eWEEK. "I just chronicle the great work thats being done to enable frictionless information flow and open access to online data."

"Its an honor," Paoli said of winning the award. "Its the work of a lot of people." Paoli also noted that he had brought along "the first draft of the XML spec that we presented here in 96."

To read about Microsofts XML patent moves, click here.

In an interview with eWEEK, Paoli said of winning the award: "Its great. Personally, its like a long history, 20 years doing this. It touched me personally because I really enjoyed taking the XML community and making it work with Microsoft. Its been a very rewarding experience.

"Thats kind of what makes me the most happy here ... is the meeting between different personalities, different experts and different visions that kind of met at a certain point and did something that is extremely innovative."

Paoli led the effort to get XML integrated into the Microsoft .Net platform and then into the Microsoft Office productivity suite, the SQL Server database and other products such as Microsofts BizTalk Server. He is now working to further integrate XML into Office.

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