| By Roger Strukhoff | Article Rating: |
|
| June 5, 2006 12:45 PM EDT | Reads: |
22,997 |
"It’s all about the interface," said David Boloker, CTO for Emerging Internet Technology at IBM, and the driving force behind the OpenAjax Alliance. Boloker, during his presentation at the Real-World Ajax Seminar in New York, said the "promises of richer user interfaces, encompassing all devices" lie behind the original vision for the alliance.He said he spoke with Zimbra's Scott Dietzen in late 2004, before the term "Ajax" was coined, about how "it would be really nice if we cold do something across the whole industry to grow the new web paradigm," as it was called back thenn. "Today, Ajax is expected to fulfill many promises, but hurdles remain," he added. "There are so many announced products, yet Ajax is not yet mainstream to developers."
He noted a lack of interoperability among toolkits, an issue that the Alliance identified as its number one concern during recent meetings in San Francisco. "For example, what if you like a widget from one toolksit, and other widgets from other toolkits? You can't use them all now."
He also noted that "education costs (to learn Ajax) are high. There's complexity, and writing in javascript is not easy, sharing information back with the servers is not easy," he said. He said a major goal of the Alliance is to "use open standards that already exist, use de facto standards. And we have to make sure we leverage the server side work in languages and environments such as PHP, Java, and .NET."
The OpenAjax Alliance now has 34 members, Boloker said, "and all new members are welcome. We'd love to talk to companies who are interested in joining." Boloker said that he had been performing what he termed "shuttle diplomacy" ove the past several months among the various new and prospective members of the Alliance. "You can only go so far on the phone," the Boston-based Boloker said. He said he has spent significant amounts of time on the West Coast in discussions with many Alliance members.
As just one example, Boloker said he had just spoken again with Sun Microsystems, which has not joined the Alliance, although discussions continue. He said he originally contacted Jonathan Schwartz about Sun's potential participation, and that discussions with various Sun executives are continuing.
The Alliance now has a website, www.openajaxalliance.org. Boloker believes that the group can encourage "growing usage of Ajax in applications, which will foster innovations in open and closed source frameworks. The community and applications produced will enable Ajax's future functionality."
Boloker, noting that his workload had increased "by about 200 to 300 percent" since his shuttle diplomacy started, said that day-to-day activities are now being handled by new IBM John Ferraiolo, who is based on the West Coast and has come over to IBM from Adobe. Ferraiolo said that group members are now working to have another group face-to-face meeting in the September timeframe somewhere in the San Francisco/Silicon Valley area.
Meanwhile, Boloker said "we need to preserve investments as well as preserve the open nature of the web itself. We need to preserve the cross-browser, cross-platform, and cross-vendor aspects we have."
Published June 5, 2006 Reads 22,997
Copyright © 2006 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.
More Stories By Roger Strukhoff
Roger Strukhoff earned a BA with honors from Knox College, a Certificate in Technical Communications from UC-Berkeley, and an MBA from CSU-East Bay. His work recently won a "Stevie" American Business Award as best publication in its category. His volunteer work in international affairs merited a Letter of Commendation from the Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. He splits most of his time between Silicon Valley and Southeast Asia, but can also be found at www.twitter.com/strukhoff
- Cloud Computing on Gartner's Top 10 List and SYS-CON Events' 2010 Calendar
- Confessions of a Ulitzer Addict
- IBM Hardware Chief, Intel VC Exec Arrested in Insider Trading Scam
- My Thoughts on Ulitzer
- Tactical Cloud Computing Panel at 1st Annual GovIT Expo
- Ulitzer.com Named Exclusive "New Media" Sponsor of Cloud Computing Conference & Expo
- Moving Your RIA Apps into the Cloud: Seven Challenges
- Adobe’s Aiming ColdFusion at Multiple Clouds
- Windows 7 – Microsoft’s First Step to the Cloud
- Ulitzer Provides a Powerful Social Journalism Platform
- Jill Tummler Singer, Deputy CIO of CIA, Keynotes at GovIT Expo
- Open Source Mobile Cloud Sync and Push Email
- Practical Approaches for Optimizing Website Performance
- The Difference Between Web Hosting and Cloud Computing
- Cloud Computing on Gartner's Top 10 List and SYS-CON Events' 2010 Calendar
- Ajax in RichFaces 3.3, JSF 2 and RichFaces 4
- Confessions of a Ulitzer Addict
- IBM Hardware Chief, Intel VC Exec Arrested in Insider Trading Scam
- My Thoughts on Ulitzer
- Tactical Cloud Computing Panel at 1st Annual GovIT Expo
- US Post Office Hops a Ride on NetSuite’s Cloud
- Ulitzer.com Named Exclusive "New Media" Sponsor of Cloud Computing Conference & Expo
- WPF Controls by DevExpress
- Moving Your RIA Apps into the Cloud: Seven Challenges
- Building a Drag-and-Drop Shopping Cart with AJAX
- What Is AJAX?
- Google Maps! AJAX-Style Web Development Using ASP.NET
- Flashback to January 2006: Exclusive SYS-CON.TV Interviews on "OpenAjax Alliance" Announcement
- AJAXWorld Conference & Expo to Take Place October 2-4, 2006, at the Santa Clara Convention Center, California
- AJAX Sponsor Webcasts Are Now Available at AJAXWorld Website
- How and Why AJAX, Not Java, Became the Favored Technology for Rich Internet Applications
- "Real-World AJAX" One-Day Seminar Arrives in Silicon Valley
- AJAXWorld University Announces AJAX Developer Bootcamp
- AJAX Support In JadeLiquid WebRenderer v3.1
- Where Are RIA Technologies Headed in 2008?
- Struts Validations Framework Using AJAX

































