Comp Sci: XML popularity = increase traffic, solution - Binary XML?

"Putting XML in the Fast Lane"
CNet (01/13/05); LaMonica, Martin

"As Extensible Markup Language (XML) increases in popularity, the increasing traffic burden is prompting calls for binary XML and other solutions. Compressing XML into a binary format would dramatically streamline the abundance of XML communications and especially benefit performance-sensitive applications or XML applications on mobile devices, where processing power is limited. Sun Microsystems has launched an open-source project for binary XML called Fast Infoset Project that is focusing on a compression method standard already used in the telecommunications market; Fast Infoset pilots have found that XML applications run two to three times faster with the binary standard, but Sun software executive and XML co-inventor Tim Bray worries that any move to binary XML could result in incompatible XML implementations. XML compatibility has been a great success so far, and its text-based nature allows anyone to inspect the message easily in Notepad, says Bray. "If I were world dictator, I'd put a kibosh on binary XML, and I'm quite confident that the people who are pushing for it would find another solution," he says; however, binary XML that goes through standards bodies and is open source would be acceptable to him. Some of the biggest proponents for binary XML are consumer electronics firms such as Canon and Nokia, which argue that binary XML would ease the transfer of large files to mobile devices. But such industry-specific advocacy could foreshadow vertical-market binary XML applications. IBM information management general manager Janet Perna says increased XML loads are a problem, but can be solved through processing and networking advances; she points out that people thought e-commerce would overload the Internet, but those fears proved unfounded."
http://news.com.com/Putting+XML+in+the+fast+lane/2100-7345_3-5534249.html