Microsoft has LINQ, which is intended to be the uber-XML language that will replace XQuery, XSLT, XML Schema, e4x and the kitchen sink. We've been here before – promise the moon, but rather than dealing with open standards create a proprietary technology that shows Microsoft's obvious superiority in this arena while working to make the Microsoft walled community just that much more opaque to the outside world.
Ten years ago, I was an ardent Microsoft advocate, but I watched this pattern occur time and time again, and with each such broken promise (always driven by the mantra "The customer doesn't want those features, without ever really defining who that customer may be.") I became ever more disillusioned with the company. I don't think that Microsoft is evil. I do think that Microsoft is embarked on a poor strategy to protect what they perceive of as a god-given monopoly rather than adapting to the needs and flows of the twenty first centuries.