On February 10, 1998, a revolutionary Internet technology child was born into this world and given an acronym that has since become synonymous with i-technology itself.

Even though it enters only its sixth year this month, XML has had a widespread effect on the nature of generations of technology to follow.

One factual point: XML was really conceptualized much earlier than 1998; for instance, the earliest XML Working Draft that I remember dates back to November 14, 1996.

Five years later, we now see XML everywhere in the world of i-technology. Be it application-to-application integration, Web services, enterprise portals, or mobile computing, we've seen a rise in the number of technical jargons (you know, markup language for anything you can think of). Not all of them have completed the journey, but a significant number of MLs and vocabularies have found real-world applications and have gone on to become the de facto vocabulary for their purpose, industry, or use.

Certainly, XML has given the world of i-technology cause for celebration. We tend to celebrate a Silver Jubilee (25 years) or Golden Jubilee (50 years), but I think given the pace of IT, 5 years is a more appropriate anniversary to celebrate. After all, we don't have clear insight into what the nature of technology will be in 2025, let alone 2050.

So, how do you plan to celebrate the success of XML? I recommend making sure your enterprise applications are XMLized. If you've done that and would like to share your experiences with fellow technologists, or if you'd like to learn about how to really utilize XML and Web services in your applications, celebrate by attending the upcoming Web Services Edge 2003 East - International Web Services Conference & Expo, held at Boston's Hynes Convention Center, March 18-20.

A serious i-technology event, the conference will present a good mix of tracks: XML, Web services, Java, and .NET. Of course, there is XML itself in its pure form; Web services, probably the biggest application of XML; and Java/.NET, the two leading application development environments for building XML- and Web services-based applications and services.

The sessions in the XML Track range from an executive overview, "XML for Managers," to sessions on XML Schemas, OASIS, XSL-FO, XML security challenges, applications in life science, enterprise application integration and mobile computing, the Semantic Web, XQuery, XPath/XSLT 2.0, and XML tools. You can find out more information and register for the conference at www.sys-con.com/webservicesedge2003east.

Also at this important juncture of the development of XML, I would like to learn how you have successfully (or unsuccessfully) used XML and related technologies. What do you think have been the key milestones for XML development so far? And what do you think are important milestones that XML has yet to achieve? What do you think about the explosive growth of the number of vocabularies based on XML - too few or too many? The key focus area for XML-Journal in recent times has been real-world applications, and your feedback would be very useful, as I intend to dedicate a section to your comments. Let's let the real world know what's being done and what can be done using this exciting technology.

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Milestones in the History of XML

• February 14, 1998: XML 1.0
• October 1, 1998: DOM Level 1
• January 14, 1999: Namespaces in XML W3C
• February 22, 1999: RDF
• November 16, 1999: XSLT 1.0 and XPath 1.0
• January 26, 2000: XHTML 1.0
• November 13, 2000: DOM Level 2
• May 2, 2001: XML Schema
• June 27, 2001: XML Base & XLink 1.0
• October 15, 2001: XSL 1.0 (including XSL-FO)
• February 12, 2002: XML-Signature
• December 10, 2002: XML Encryption & Decryption