I really hope the picture is different in 2007

Is AJAX dead? No! To the contrary it is such a nice technology if you know how to use it. Web based software providers should think of AJAX in areas that will reduce the time users spend on tasks, not to look cool.

CRM and ERP software applications are a very important areas where AJAX and COMET can help greatly if implemented correctly and not overly. Some CRM vendors like Salesboom.com implemented AJAX and COMET for system alerts and other areas.

This should never be a case of All-or-nothing; AJAX should be implemented gradually and starting with what makes sense first.

In the case of on demand business applications such as CRM, sales people who spend less time clicking and more time selling value the little things AJAX does for them.

Dietrich Kappe hat auf seinem pathfinder Blog eine Liste von 10 Bussiness-Grnden AJAX einzusetzten, zusammengestellt.
Er zeigt auf in welchen Software Bereichen AJAX Techniken sinnvoll sind und wie sie Zeit- und Arbeitserleichterungen herbeif&uu…

lack of accessibility.

I am actually a developer but from my point of view your post looks even more on the money. I have long been developing AJAX applications and I too had the feeling that there is much maturing to be done. I think one of the weakest aspects of the AJAX hype is manageability. While AJAX applications had taken the user experience from the dark ages back to where it should be, there has been very little concern on the consequences. AJAX based applications are still very complex to develop and they are very unstable because of there complexity.

So in the above prospective I think too that product managers are doing wisely double checking there options. I have been contemplating these issues from the technology side of things to try to understand what makes these applications so hard to develop and maintain causing them to be so risky for product managers.

A couple of years ago I had developed a desktop application for one of the companies I worked for and I realized that developing a desktop application does not come with all the dilemmas of building a web application. After long thinking this issue out I had got to the conclusion that when building web applications you always start with the question “How am I going to do it?” instead of the question “What am I going to do?”, while desktop development automatically starts up with the second question.

That was exactly what led me to develop Visual WebGui, which is actually a desktop oriented development for web. Adopting the well known WinForms model for the .NET environment I had created an environment that lets you develop web applications exactly like you develop desktop applications and by doing so I managed to solve that issue. The concept actually eliminated the first question by hiding all the web plumbing and web snags that developers face and by doing so it provides a much more manageable environment to develop web applications.

This concept obviously does not fit all projects but it fits where it hurts the most, in IT oriented web applications where having a manageable environment is super critical. Existing applications could be better off using Atlas like frameworks to boost existing web applications but new applications or extensions to existing web application could definitely benefit from the concept.

I think Visual WebGui is the mature solution for product managers. Using existing tools and long time tested concepts it reduces the risk and accelerates web development cycles. while still in beta, I believe it will bring AJAX into the main stream.

http://www.visualwebgui.com
Guy Peled

With all of the time I spend ripping on Ajax, I figured that I might make a point of sharing one blogger’s thoughts on Ajax in the business world….