Ajax catching on at Microsoft, ClearNova

InfoWorld - Asynchronous JavaScript plus XML (Ajax) technology for building rich Web applications is getting a boost this week from Microsoft Corp. and ClearNova Inc.

At its Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft demonstrated its Atlas development software. An early preview is now available. Using Dynamic HTML (DHTML) and asynchronous server communications, Atlas offers server-side extensions to Active Server Pages .Net and client-side scripting libraries in JavaScript that work on many browsers and platforms, according to a Microsoft representative. This is intended to make it easier to build rich Web experiences.

Microsoft is compelled to offer an Ajax product, said analyst John Rymer, vice president of application development and infrastructure at Forrester Research Inc.

"It fills a gap within their development environment. They didn't address Ajax at all," Rymer said. "I think a lot of people are overestimating Ajax, how valuable it's going to be. But a lot of people are using it, and Microsoft just had no answer."

He added that Ajax is just scripting. Although flexible and easy, it's difficult to maintain applications written with scripts because of a lack of structure, Rymer said. "It's not a silver bullet," he noted.

Alpharetta, Ga.-based ClearNova, however, is revamping its product around Ajax. The vendor is announcing its ThinkCAP JX (Complete Application Platform Ajax) environment. Previously, ThinkCAP didn't support Ajax.

"[ThinkCAP JX is] basically a RAD [rapid application development] for building rich Internet applications with Java technology," said Steve Benfield, vice president of strategy at ClearNova.

Ajax offers benefits in page presentation, Benfield said. "Normal Web interfaces are just clunky. You've got to refresh the page all the time. Ajax eliminates that."

ThinkCAP includes a visual workbench for page development, an event model for different aspects of development, data-aware controls, visual effects and a page-flow designer for point-and-click building of application flow. It can be integrated with the Eclipse open-source development environment.

Also featured is integration with approximately 25 open-source frameworks and engines, including Struts and Hibernate. In addition, an application programming interface is included to ease the process of building Ajax functionality into Java systems.

An official at Rosemead, Calif.-based Panda Restaurant Group Inc., which plans to use ThinkCAP JX, expressed mixed feelings about Ajax but favors ClearNova's product.

"Who wants to do Ajax programming? What a productivity nightmare," said Caleb Mitsvotai, executive director of development for the information systems group at Panda, in an e-mail. "However, the result of the technology is exciting. With ThinkCAP's component architecture, it's a natural fit for Ajax, and I can Ajax-enable my currentThinkCAP applications by setting a property in the ThinkCAP.XML file. I don't have to code the Ajax client and server-side JavaScript, XML and HTTP."

A public beta release of ThinkCAP JX is due at the end of the month. The general release of the product is planned for the fourth quarter of this year. Prices begin at $2,500 for the ThinkCAP JX Workbench. For deploying applications, a server edition is required. The Enterprise Edition is priced at $15,000 per production server; the more restrictive Community Edition -- for deploying to Tomcat, JBoss and the MySQL database -- will be available at no charge.