ok, alot of comments here and no one is 100% correct as this is a subjective issue.

The article was titled "Is XML the Answer...". The answer to what? I agree that XML is not the answer to a large enterprise data store. A good RDMS is whats needed here, SQL Server, Oracle, MyPhp, whatever... A large dataset is always going to best off stored and MANAGED in a fully relational database server.

But XML is the answer to many problems and issues. One of the biggest is data transportation. XML has made this so much easier over the last 3-4 years. It is a standard and a standard that is going to stick. It may not be as strict a standard as we are used to, but a easy to use standard way of transporting data it is.

It also offers so much more, easy transformation for user display, easy parsing, human readability (For debuging, development), but its not the answer to everything and I dont thing anyone has ever said it is.

XML does not lend itself very well to data management, i dont think was ever intended to be used as such. It is purley a markup language for transporting data between systems.

Let it do what it was intended for and XML is fantastic!