Open AJAX Initiative

Dietrich Kappe, Monday, June 12, 2006 @ 9:00 am

Right now AJAX is in its Wild West phase. Every day brings a new framework, every week a new technique. This intellectual ferment is great for innovation, but it makes commercial product managers nervous. It is risky, adopting new and changing technologies, and the penalties for adopting the wrong one can be severe.

At some point, however, the innovation slows down and standards emerge. It becomes safe for the Fortune 500 to venture into the water -- you just don't want to have standards take over too soon and stifle innovation. But with the invention/adoption cycle getting so much tighter, some product managers will adopt AJAX in the face of uncertainty. Either they go the perceived safe route and go with MS Atlas, or they look to an equivalent security blanket on the non-Microsoft side.

Enter the Open AJAX Initiative. From the release (emphasis added):

The initial supporting members of the new initiative -- dubbed Open
Ajax -- include BEA, Borland, the Dojo Foundation, Eclipse Foundation,
Google, IBM, Laszlo Systems, Mozilla Corporation, Novell, Openwave
Systems, Oracle, Red Hat, Yahoo, Zend and Zimbra. They intend to
promote Ajax's promise of universal compatibility with any computer
device, application, desktop or operating system, and easy
incorporation into new and existing software programs.

Whenever an industry group gets together, it makes me nervous. As often as these bodies set standards, they also subdue competition and, consequently, innovation. Certainly standards for AJAX need to happen, but not too soon, before the technology has had an opportunity to ripen. We can't have 150 or 200 frameworks for the long term, but for the short term I think they are healthy. Seeing that this group seems dominated by the client-side component framework crowd (Laszlo, Google, etc.), I'm a little nervous that the server-side component guys like ZK and Echo2 will get short shrift.

It's too early to say which way this initiative will go, whether it will be just an empty marketing effort, a useful open standards effort, or an evil, anti-competitive mud wrestling spectacle. Do keep an eye out, though. In the words of Don Deutsch of Oracle, "The creation of software standards can seem academic. In reality, it’s big business."

agile ajax

Comments: 3 so far

• Leave a comment
• Comment feed for this post
• TrackBack URL

1. 

   this is great staff you are doing.i just want to know how i can use open ajax and download it

   Comment by rashmore chitukutuku, Thursday, February 22, 2007 @ 8:38 am

2. 

   i’m doing a project on open ajax please can you assist me and the project also consist of a down load of the open ajax system

   Comment by rashmore chitukutuku, Thursday, February 22, 2007 @ 8:43 am

3. 

   i’m doing a project on open ajax please can you assist me and the project also consist of a down load of the open ajax system

   Comment by rashmore chitukutuku, Thursday, February 22, 2007 @ 8:43 am

Leave a comment