OpenAjax Alliance goes live

By Tom Sanders on Sep 21, 2006 9:58 AM
Filed under Software

Industry group pushing web2.0 standard cuts ribbon on website, strategic
goals.

The OpenAjax Alliance has unveiled its strategic goals and a website, marking the official launch of the industry alliance.

The OpenAjax Alliance aims promote the use of Asynchronous Java and XML (Ajax) by taking on technical and interoperability issues. The group also plans to develop marketing initiatives to advocate the use of Ajax technology amongst developers.

Ajax is one of the major enablers of so-called web2.0 websites such as Flickr and Digg.com. It lets a website pre-fetch data, allowing it to become more responsive and deliver a user experience that resembles regular applications.

"The momentum and benefits of the OpenAjax collaboration are important factors in advancing the adoption of Ajax technology across the industry," said Jon Ferraiolo, acting director of OpenAjax Alliance and an IBM engineer.

"Ajax is a major phenomenon in the computer industry and will be the foundation of the next generation of the Web. Our mission is to accelerate customer success with Ajax through our technical and marketing activities."

The group has nearly doubled its membership since it was first launched in February this year. Current members include Adobe, Backbase, BEA, the DoJo Foundation, Eclipse Foundation, Google, IBM, Novell, Oracle, SAP and Red Hat.

The group plans to meet early October in Silicon Valley. The meeting will coincide with the Ajax World conference that is scheduled to take place in Santa Clara, California.