Alex Hopmann, the creator of the first XMLHTTP object:
I realized that the MSXML library shipped with IE and I had some good contacts over in the XML team who would probably help out- I got in touch with Jean Paoli who was running that team at the time and we pretty quickly struck a deal to ship the thing as part of the MSXML library. Which is the real explanation of where the name XMLHTTP comes from- the thing is mostly about HTTP and doesn't have any specific tie to XML other than that was the easiest excuse for shipping it so I needed to cram XML into the name (plus- XML was the hot technology at the time and it seemed like some good marketing for the component).
Read the complete story behind the XMLHTTP object from Microsoft at Alex Hopmann’s blog.
Technorati: XMLHTTPRequest, Ajax