The initiative will also continue to be integrated with the Kabuki AJAX Toolkit Project recently accepted for incubation by the Apache Software Foundation, several executives told us.

Official information regarding this initiative also pointed out that the Dojo Toolkit, an Open Source Javascript library, "is an AJAX runtime that allows users to build responsive applications using simple and powerful application program interfaces. Applications built on Dojo easily adapt to changing standards and browser capabilities because Dojo is portable between HTML, SVG and other emerging standards."

Traction Started Last Summer
The appeal of AJAX was first pointed out to SYS-CON Media in the summer of 2005 by longtime contributor Steve Benfield (pictured, and now CTO of Agentis Software). Benfield noted that even though many people in the developer community were aware of Google Maps and its frequent citing as a classic AJAX application, that in fact there was a spectrum of application development that could benefit from the AJAX approach.

By combining Asynchronous Javascript with XML ( to beget the name AJAX), this approach allows browser-based tasks to be completed on desktop rather than having to travel back to a central server to be updated. By speeding up applications while enriching their capabilities, a new generation of so-called "Rich Internet Applications" and/or "Web 2.0" applications can be wrought, Benfield pointed out.

Javascript and XML are hardly new, but the coalescing of open-source philosophy, technology industry recovery, and a desire for disarmingly easier ways to create more powerful applications has given AJAX serious traction in recent months. (SYS-CON Media, for example, is producing "Real-World AJAX" seminar series to be led by Jesse James Garrett, the "Father of AJAX.")

Key executives from the many vendors involved in the Open AJAX announcement apparently started to think out loud about its potential in 2005 as well. Although one executive sighed as he noted that talks have been going on "for a long time," thie timeframe can apparently be measured in months, not years, and reflects a fast-burgeoning, grassroots effort that appears to be a quite a different animal from the many top-down, proprietary initiative routinely announced by major technology companies.