X-ray spectroscopy of early-type stars: The present and the future

XMM-Newton and Chandra have boosted our knowledge about the X-ray emission of early-type stars (spectral types OB and Wolf-Rayet). However, there are still a number of open questions that need to be addressed in order to fully understand the X-ray spectra of these objects. Many of these issues require high-resolution spectroscopy or monitoring of a sample of massive stars. Given the moderate X-ray brightness of these targets, rather long exposure times are needed to achieve these goals. In this contribution, we review our current knowledge in this field and present some hot topics that could ideally be addressed with XMM-Newton over the next decade. (C) 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.