Lee Epting (pictured), Nokia's Vice President for Developer Operations, says that Nokia's aim of making the mobile platform more predictable and easier to work needs naturally to include newer browsing platforms...and AJAX is very much flavor of the month, so Nokia needs to watch it carefully and decide what mobile developers want.

A veteran of Palm and Handspring before she joined Nokia, Epting said in a magazine interview that AJAX's feature-rich interface was potentially "very important" for developers of mobile apps, a view strongly endorse by "Real-World AJAX" speaker Ajit Jaokar, who has written a chapter for SYS-CON Books' forthcoming Real-World AJAX: Secrets of the Masters book on exactly this topic.

"Java ME as it stands today is seriously flawed (not the technology but the business model)," Jaokar comments. 

He adds:

"XHTML will be an ‘also ran’ because AJAX will offer a superior user experience. Hence, my belief that AJAX will be the preferred platform of choice for mobile applications at the expense of Java ME and XHTML."

Bill Ray, Industry Analyst with ARC Chart and former editor-in-chief of Wireless Business & Technology, comments:

"AJAX is not an efficient technology; when compared to C++ or Java, it needs more processing power and memory to achieve the same thing, but it does allow content to be developed very quickly and for the mobile Internet there is a real dearth of high-quality content - so this looks like a good move from Nokia.

AJAX could also provide the ideal platform for content hosted on next generation SIM chips, which operators are already deploying with proprietary platforms."

• AjaxWorld Magazine: AJAX for Mobile Devices Will Be the Hallmark of "Mobile Web 2.0" in 2006
• AJAX For Mobile Devices
• AJAX and Mobile Web 2.0: A Service Blueprint Combining del.icio.us and flickr
• The Impact of Web 2.0 / AJAX on Mobile Applications
• The Impact of Web 2.0 / AJAX on Mobile Applications
• Will "Mobile AJAX" Dominate Web 2.0?