Microsoft Codename "Astoria"

What to know about Astoria
The goal of Microsoft Codename Astoria is to enable applications to expose data as a data service that can be consumed by web clients within corporate networks and across the internet. The data service is reachable over regular HTTP requests, and standard HTTP verbs such as GET, POST, PUT and DELETE are used to perform operations against the service. The payload format for the data exchanged with the service can be controlled by the client and all options are simple, open formats such as plan XML and JSON. The use of web-friendly technologies make it ideal as a data back-end for AJAX-style applications, Rich Interactive Applications and other applications that need to operate against data that is across the web.

To know more
http://blog.programmableweb.com/2007/05/01/microsoft-astoria-for-web-data-services/

To download the CTP: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=1B6F85BC-8933-4D0E-A639-934EF85ADCE1&displaylang=en