XML, Visual Basic and.... SQL Server!?

Most of the time when I look at books that consist of Visual Basic and XML, there is almost always a requirement list so you know what you need to do the examples in the book. But what is really common is the fact that you either need windows SQL server.

My question is why do you need SQL server to parse XML when you use visual basic? Is it because everything boils back down to microsoft?

Microsoft XML parser (or something of that name)
Microsoft Visual basic
So thus, Microsoft SQL server?

Can't you use SOAP or even PERL/CGI to parse XML (and I believe you can)

So whats the deal with SQL server

from what I have read is that XML works really good with the SQL server. I mean that XML is used for a wide area but it works better as a database language.

I could be wrong, but that is what I understand.

SQL is not required to parse XML. You cna do it with any other language that provides a control for XML parsing. For MS products you use MSXML.dll