Microsoft Joins the OpenAjax Alliance
The OpenAjax Alliance, which now counts Microsoft as its latest member, is producing a set of requirements it calls OpenAjax Conformance. These OpenAjax requirements are designed to offer seamless integration of Ajax technologies, including Ajax code that uses mashup techniques to draw in data from disparate platforms.
In a move that could signal a general movement toward a standards-based Ajax, or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, Microsoft Relevant Products/Services joined the OpenAjax Alliance on Wednesday.
The Alliance, an industry collaboration whose purpose is to develop and expand the use of Ajax, said it now has a membership of 72 companies. In addition to Microsoft, 30 other companies have recently joined.
“By joining OpenAjax,” Microsoft group product manager Keith Smith said in a statement, the Redmond, Washington-based company “is continuing its commitment to empower Web developers with technology that works cross-browser and cross-platform.”
Web 2.0 Dynamo
Ajax, first coined as a term in 2005, combines several technologies to create Web-based functionality that is more dynamic than typical Web pages, which often need to reload to obtain new data. With Ajax, applications can exchange small amounts of data with the server, while appearing to the user to be more like desktop applications.
The Alliance is seeking a set of requirements it calls OpenAjax Conformance. These requirements will offer seamless integration of Ajax technologies, such as ones that use mashup techniques. The term “mashup” refers to the combination of layers of data or content, often from different sources.
It also seeks lower training costs and a faster delivery of Web 2.0 innovations through common standards. In addition, the group is attempting to address Ajax-related security Relevant Products/Services issues.
The Alliance is promoting Ajax as a way to produce more interactive and productive connections between users and Web-based applications. New kinds of products could include “application wikis” where users create their own personalized mashups, new forms of collaboration that harness collective intelligence, network-based applications that go beyond single devices, and Web-capable mobile devices.
‘Great Move’
“This is a great move” by Microsoft, said Jeffrey Hammond, an analyst with Forrester Research. He said that it confounds those critics who say Microsoft is only interested in supporting proprietary technology, like VB.NET, and it could add the critical mass needed for standardization to succeed.
“This signals that Microsoft could be ready to embrace standards for Ajax and move toward industry interoperability,” he added.
The big problem with Ajax for I.T. departments, he said, “is that there are so many frameworks now,” and an I.T. manager could easily choose one that is not 100 percent compatible with others or with various platforms. “The OpenAjax Alliance can define standards.”
“In widgets, for example,” he said, “there is the VBX standard, which has led to an explosion of compatible widgets. Where is the VBX standard for Ajax? Instead of every vendor showing a different library, let’s see a standard.”
The Alliance, only ten months old, has grown from 13 member companies to over 70. Besides Microsoft, other Alliance members include Adobe, BEA, IBM, Mozilla, Laszlo Systems, Novell, Openwave, Opera, Oracle, SAP, and Sun. [Source: Barry Levine / Newsfactor]
