Adam Bosworth

hile many credit Adam Bosworth with XML's meteoric rise as a standard data-exchange language, the well-respected computer scientist is more humble.

But certainly Bosworth must take some credit for convincing his former superiors at Microsoft to invest considerably in XML as a catalyst for allowing applications to communicate with each other.

Now driving new software development at BEA Systems, Bosworth has extended this early work via WebLogic Workshop, a tool that uses XML to create Java-based Web services in a visual development environment, and through his more recent work on a wireless browser.

Bosworth's rise has not been without its pauses. When he departed from Microsoft in early 2000 to co-found CrossGain with other ex-Microsoft employees, the software giant filed suit, claiming noncompete violations. Bosworth took a hiatus, returning some months later as CrossGain CEO. He eventually sold the company to BEA in 2001.

Joe Lindsay, CTO of solution provider eBuilt, Costa Mesa, Calif., says Bosworth's work has helped address two important development problems,interoperability between the Microsoft .Net and J2EE frameworks and the difficulty of developing applications using J2EE.