Many of the biggest players in the industry proclaim that
AJAX is dead. Obviously they claim this for their own reasons.
Silverlight is the future, Flex is the future, and so on. Everyone wants to own the internet with proprietary binary code. Probably will this showdown between these industry giants not result in a clear winner. Rich Internet Applications are glued together by open standards and open technologies. The thing here is that we also believe that AJAX is dead, but not in the same sense or for the same reasoning. We believe AJAX is another paradigm shift in the history of computing. Here are 7 reasons why.
1) AJAX as a concept marked the transition of the usability of web applications. The incremental and instant update of changed data increases end user productivity with the same factor as desktop applications.
2) AJAX was in the early dark ages difficult to implement, because it required extensive javascript, xml and various library knowledge. Since then we have moved slowly upwards in the abstraction ladder and Gaia Ajax Widgets abstracts everything into a single assembly that developers can consume to write pure C#. The only thing we regret is naming our library Ajax Widgets, because our customers don't have to think about AJAX. All details are taken care of.
3) AJAX is based on
open standards and therefore serves no master. Internet is about freedom, communication, collaboration and sharing. Gaia is open source and 100% compatible with linux and mono. This enables freedom, choice and learning.
4) AJAX is the missing link to fully enable the new economy. Everybody talked about the new economy in the late 90s and everybody laughed about it after the crash. Does this mean that most people in the world was plain stupid back then or did they understand something important after all. Google is perhaps the best example of the opportunities of the new economy. Not to mention PayPal, eBay, Amazon, YouTube, Deli.cio.us, Digg, etc.
5) AJAX in the sense of history includes "the irony of fate". As we all know Microsoft became market leader after "the deal" with IBM. Microsoft has since then used it's monopoly to freeze out competitors. The list of corpses is long and simple searches for microsoft, monopoly, antitrust reveals many of these stories. The irony here is that Microsoft invented AJAX to make their Outlook Web Access much more usable and thereby enabling technologies such as XmlHttpRequest. Since then AJAX has been implemented in various AJAX applications that slowly reclaims marketshare from desktop applications. Examples include SalesForce, GMail, 24SevenOffice, Writely, GCalender, etc. When the complete office suite can be replaced with a "good-enough" web version, Microsoft will experience "reversed tipping-point". A gradual replacement of windows desktop clients.
6) AJAX is so dangerous for the Blue chips companies (Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, etc) that it gets the spooks out in daylight. It requires less hardware, less software, less licences, less money, less resources and it's open approach is incompatible with large company dividens. Therefore AJAX makes it easy to discover hidden agendas.
7) AJAX has matured and will continue to evolve. Gaia Ajax Widgets gets better by the clock. Soon nobody will consider conventional desktop applications for communication, collaboration, sales, finance, management and other. All the user need is a firefox browser sitting on any device ready to consume the next generation applications.
The most important thing for us in Gaia Ajax Widgets is to get up in the morning and feel enthusiastic. To work with things that matter to us and the people we care about. We get this energy every day and these are exciting times. I wouldn't trade this opportunity away for anything. AJAX is dead and AJAX will last forever and will be taught in schools as the concept that changed the shape of the earth.
Don't forget to read
Open Source and Ajax