XSLT on the server side

Hi again:

After playing around with xsl for some months, only on the client
(browser) side, i'm beggining to evaluate the benefits of doing it
also on the server side. Since i'm not a expert on this, i'll seek for
help to the list. So here are some questions.

What are the benefits of server-side transforms? How do i make then?
Can i call a xslt directly on the server by xmlhttprequest or do i
have to write some server-side component that wraps the xslt? (like a
servlet or asp)

I want to keep the server-side processing the most platform-indpendent
as i can. However the company is using IIS and .Net, so how can i
achive this?

What processors can i use? Saxon .Net? Can i eventually port some
server-side component that uses Saxon .Net to another platform using,
say, Java and Saxon?

I have more questions than i can formulate, so i'll stop here, but if
someone has experince on such a porting, please let me know some
insights.

Thanks.