Am curious why there seems to be only one major contributor, Alvin, to the
above news group.

I have asked a number of questions about XML support for the Spreadsheet Web
component, with zero response. That tells me an insufficient number of MVP's
are examining this technology, or that there something innate about the
technology that is undesireable. What is it?

It also seems that with the future gravitating to Web Services, and Google
like web based spreadsheets, and the capability of the Office Web components
as far as putting a Excel spreadsheet on the Web with full scripting
capability, this would be an attractive feature, particularly if there is
self-validating XSD/XML support for data entry into the Spreadsheet component.

Is the unpopularity of that group and those features due to Microsoft
steering away from COM in their .NET architecture, or security issues,
marketing issues, or other factors?