NEWPORT BEACH, Calif.In the modern IT world, SQL and XML have become such key components in the database sector that its difficult to remember a time when they weren't part of the architectural story.
However, in the late 1960s and early 70s, database architectures with flexible field sizes, nested tables and loose-data typing options were winning market share and mind share. While these earlier systems lacked the tagging that in many ways defines XML as XML, they behaved in a remarkably similar manner in all other respects.
The article continues at http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Database/PostRelational-Databases-Flying-Under-the-Radar/