It was roughly a year ago, with the introduction of Google Maps, that the term Ajax was coined. Ajax, an acronym for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is not a technology itself but a web development technique that combines preexisting technologies that have been around for years. A recent report by IDC refers to Ajax as, "A development technique that uses HTML, JavaScript, and often XML to allow Web applications to communicate with web servers and present new information to the user without continually reloading the page." This may not appear on the face to be significant, to many it may be read as 'faster loading web pages,' but it is. The spreading use of Ajax has already raised the bar for Web development; further, there are those that say that Ajax will make desktop applications obsolete. Though IDC does not go that far, they do state that, "Ajax may be the buzzword of 2005, and some of the hype is deserved: it closes one significant gap between Web and desktop applications by allowing Web applications to move away from their traditional, page-based model."
As stated above, one of the first Web applications to make use of Ajax was Google Maps. Google Maps differs largely from prior map programs in that it allows for features such as zooming and rotation without requiring the page to refresh. Prior to this the process was more or less, 'click zoom and wait for the new page to load;' any user of Google Maps will quickly notice its fluidity. Another example of Ajax in action is Gap's (or many other) eCommerce site; here users can get close ups of merchandise or see merchandise displayed in an alternate color without refreshing the page. The NetFlix web site is also a notable user of Ajax; here Ajax is used to present supplemental information about movies when the title is hovered over. This implementation is significant for two reasons, it avoids the need to load all relevant information initially, which would slow the page load, and it does not require the user click on the 'details' link to gain access to such information. Microsoft is also using Ajax in its web-based version of Outlook, as is Google's Gmail. All this shows the power of Ajax on the Web, but what does it mean for the future of desktop applications.
Those that would state that a typical desktop application, for example Microsoft Word, will be replaced by Ajax (or similarly) enabled technologies base the idea, at least in part, on Ajax's ability to store data remotely as it is typed, rather than requiring a user to hit a 'save' or 'enter' key. In this scenario a user could create a document on any PC and have it saved in cyberspace for retrieval from any PC at a later time. This functionality is already available at sites such as Writely.com; it is also the direction that Microsoft Live! is moving in; what Ajax could do is make this possible without an Internet browser.
As far as overtaking common desktop applications there are several barriers that would need to be surpassed for this to happen, at the top of the list are connectivity and code. A true web-based application can only run if the user is connected to the Web with a fast connection; and JavaScript, on which Ajax relies, is not noted for its streamlined code. Despite these barriers, Ajax according to IDC, has already transformed, "Expectations and standards for what a Web application can (and should) do." With the need for desktop applications to be more portable, implementations which allow this will continue to gain in popularity. However, as IDC puts it, "Ajax is hot right now, and many are suggesting that it will make the desktop application obsolete. Remote scripting is worthy of hype and attention, but as with most over-hyped technologies, such claims are extreme. Significant gaps remain between desktop and Web applications."
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