The AJAX Wildfire Spreads: AJAXWorld Conference & Expo 2-4 October

AJAXWorld Conference & Expo - Schedule At-a-Glance (click here)

AJAXWorld Conference & Expo - Complete List of Speakers

AJAXWorld Conference & Expo - Complete List of Keynotes, Keynote Panels, and Sessions

AJAXWorld Conference & Expo - Complete List of Sponsors (2006, West)

The AJAX wildfire is about to break out at the Santa Clara Convention Center in the heart of Silicon Valley, as the AJAXWorld Conference & Expo - the biggest ever tradeshow devoted to AJAX, Rich Internet Applications, and Web 2.0 - opens its doors October 2-4. The three-day event kicks off tomorrow with an all-day AJAX University Bootcamp, led by Dion Hinchcliffe.

In the run-up to AJAXWorld, the blogosphere has been alive with debate and discussion. Among the questions being raised by industry mavens like Matt Asay and analyst-bloggers like Tony Baer of Sandhill.com are:

• Do we have "good fragmentation" in the AJAX space, the same way that Linus Torvalds recognized "good fragmentation" in the Linux space 5-6 years ago?
• Are the de facto standards for AJAX being imposed by a hegemonic Google?

Baer, in an opinion piece looking at the "Enterprise 2.0" vision, begins very straightforwardly:

"Using readily available technologies, the Ajax folks have proven that their relatively simple methods not only work, but can open up significant new business opportunities for the web."

But he then moves on to ponder the interoperability problems that are likel to arise in an AJAX world characterized by complete freedom:

"given the fact that there are relatively few technical barriers to doing mashups with other Ajax web pages floating around, you've got some potential interoperability problems on your hands."

What Baer, principal of onStrategies, underlines is the need for something like OpenAjax, which he sees as an explicit attempt by the 50+ vendors now involved to foster standarization in place of fragmentation.

OpenAjax was born in late 2005 thanks largely to the globetrotting of David Boloker, IBM’s CTO of Emerging Internet Technologies - a speaker at AJAXWorld Conference & Expo 2006, naturally. Initially, a small number of leading companies brainstormed about how to ensure that Ajax fulfills its potential as the industry standard rich application platform based on open technologies. These early discussions came to a climax on Feb. 1, 2006, with the announcement of the "OpenAjax Initiative", whose 15 original companies included BEA, Borland, the Dojo Foundation, Eclipse Foundation, Google, IBM, Laszlo Systems, Mozilla Corporation, Novell, Openwave Systems, Oracle, Red Hat, Yahoo, Zend and Zimbra.

Between February 1 and May 15, another 15 organizations joined "OpenAjax", and the (then) 30 companies held a two-day kickoff meeting in San Francisco to lay out the blue-print for the initiative moving forward. At the meeting, the group decided to establish the OpenAjax Alliance, defined its mission, agreed on an interim organizational process, and established its initial activities.

Today, over 50 companies are involved. The Alliance claims that it will "purposely avoid competition with existing open standards and open source initiatives and instead will collaborate with and support any relevant open technology initiative."

Its mission statment is laid out on its brand new website, www.openajax.org: 

"The OpenAjax Alliance fills the Ajax interoperability gap in the industry. Other standards organizations such as W3C develop standards focused on what building-block features browsers must support, such as HTML, CSS, DOM, SVG, and JavaScript/ECMAScript. The OpenAjax Alliance addresses a technology layer above these browser formats, where the alliance defines "OpenAjax" specifications and best practices such that multiple Ajax toolkits will coexist and interoperate with the same Ajax-powered application."

The site site aims to provide a standard vocabulary for industry terms such as "Ajax" and "OpenAjax," and will over time start to include white papers and block diagrams on Ajax technologies and associated best practices, with a focus on cross-vendor interoperability.

Baer notes that the Alliance is planning to elect a board of directors, something that will take place at the meeting of its members that it has planned to coincide with AJAXWorld 2006.

("Can the attorneys be far behind?" Baer quips, a reference to the inevitable legal formalities that follow any major industry organization.)

Matt Asay seems optimistic that the shift towards standards will mark a necessary maturing. Nonetheless he seems to know too that for things to crystallize, you sometimes need a following wind. The final words of his piece are: "Good luck AJAX."

Below is the schedule for tomorrow's AJAX University Bootcamp:

AJAXWorld University Bootcamp Schedule