'Ten years ago,' Coach Wei tells Jeremy Geelan in this exclusive interview with AJAXWorld Magazine, 'I was as a poor graduate student naive enough to start a company at the bottom of the 'dot-bomb' burst. I learned so much coping with the 'nuclear winter,' raising $18M in financing, working through all the challenges associated with the market, dealing with investors and everything else. I only wish that I had known all this before I got started.'

frevvo announced Live Forms software which enables users and developers to easily create rich AJAX forms with built-in business capabilities. Live Forms provides a complete Web-based design experience that can be embedded into any application and is ideal for Enterprise Social Software companies, BPM/SOA vendors, Web hosting providers and solution providers.

Curl announced it has released the availability of an Ubuntu Installer for the Curl Rich Internet Application (RIA) platform. Curl is a Rich Internet Application platform that competes with Adobe AIR/Flex, Silverlight, and Ajax. Curl has been shipping with Linux support for RedHat 9, SusE 9, and Turbolinux 10 and 11. Ubuntu is the latest Linux platform Curl 6.0 supports. Curl 6.0 also supports Microsoft Windows (XP, and Vista) as well as a beta version for Mac OS X (PowerPC and Intel).

Kaazing Corporation and Sun Microsystems announced an alliance to deliver the scalable and advanced real-time Web 2.0 platform. The integration between Kaazing's real-time Rich Internet Application (RIA) solution, Enterprise Comet, and Sun Microsystems' open source Java EE application server, Glassfish, enables customers to create and deploy scalable mission-critical real-time solutions such as trading systems, betting and gambling applications, and interactive sports and news broadcasts, to the Web.

Rich Green, executive vice president of Software at Sun, outlined in his keynote presentation at JavaOne in San Francisco a roadmap for the JavaFX family of products that includes a high performance declarative scripting language, JavaFX Script - created for Web scripters, designers and developers to quickly build and deliver the next generation of RIAs for desktop, mobile, TV and other consumer devices.

Software Research has announced the availability of major new specialized commands in its Patented eValid Website Test & Analysis Suite. eValid has introduced a set of AJAX Playback Synchronization on DOM Element commands that provide direct control of test script playback synchronization by interaction with the current DOM of an AJAX page. This new eValid capability allows testers to address AJAX applications -- which by nature are 'asynchronous' -- in a reliable way. Once the playback synchronization is determined, eValid test scripts play back reliably, independent of how long the internal AJAX operations require.

Xceed launched Xceed Upload for Silverlight, the commercial offering in support of Microsoft's promising new Silverlight technology. The product is available now for purchase or as a fully functional 45-day trial on Xceed's website. Xceed Upload for Silverlight lets developers add upload capabilities to any Silverlight 2 Beta 1 application. All upload operations are asynchronous; as a result, the Web page hosting the Silverlight application remains perfectly responsive and usable throughout the transfer.

Sun Microsystems announced it has entered into a multi-year agreement with On2 Technologies to add comprehensive video capabilities, using On2 Technologies TrueMotion video codecs, to Sun's JavaFX, a family of products for creating Rich Internet Applications (RIAs) with immersive media and content across all the 'screens of your life'.

According to Sean Walsh, President and CEO of Skyway Software, 'Our Skyway Community is thriving and our members are very talented. We truly look forward to their RIAs submittals and Skyway Builder extensions and are excited that all of the contributions will benefit the entire Skyway Community.' With Skyway Builder CE, Java developers get an open source Eclipse-based plugin that offers a seamless blend of coding and modeling for delivering RIAs and Web Services in Spring. Unlike any other modeling tool, Skyway Builder CE provides comprehensive modeling capabilities at four distinct application layers:

Virtualization Journal now reaches more than 60,000 online readers with monthly digital editions and weekly newsletters. The premier issue of the magazine's print edition, which debuts on May 6, 2008, at JavaOne in San Francisco, as a media sponsor of this event, will be available on newsstands worldwide. Article submission inquiries can be directed by email to editorial(at)sys-con.com and the world's most targeted advertising opportunities can be explored by contacting ad vertising(at)sys-con.com, or by phone 201 802-3021.

Building on its November 2007 preview, Oracle previewed additional planned feature enhancements of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g. Based on feedback resulting from close cooperation with customers testing in real-world environments, the latest preview of Oracle Fusion Middleware 11g includes planned features intended to provide Java developers with a unified design and development experience based on new open standards for Java, SOA, AJAX, Web 2.0 and Security and to help reduce the time, effort and cost of developing Rich Enterprise, Web and mobile applications.

Founded in 2006, SYS-CON Media's 'Virtualization Journal' is the world's first magazine devoted exclusively to what Gartner has earmarked as the single highest-impact IT trend through 2012: virtualization. And now it will be available on newsstands worldwide, as SYS-CON Media seeks to support the world-beating 'International Virtualization Conference & Expo' series produced by SYS-CON Events with top-quality print collateral, available at newsstands wherever fine-quality technical journals are sold.

EnterpriseDB released a plug-in for Postgres Studio that creates an AJAX-enabled Java application based on a Postgres database table or schema. Postgres Studio is a graphical database administration console that is built on the widely admired pgAdmin foundation and only available as part of Postgres Plus. The plug-in generates Java source code, scripts, NetBeans, and Eclipse project files for screen-based applications that can create, read, update, and delete records in target Postgres databases. The plug-in extensively leverages the JBoss Seam Framework, creating a pre-configured Seam environment for Postgres Plus.

Backbase added official support for Adobe AIR, a new runtime environment from Adobe Systems for deploying rich Internet applications (RIAs). This integration lets applications built on Backbase Enterprise AJAX run as applications on the desktop across various operating systems. Applications created with Backbase Enterprise AJAX and deployed on Adobe AIR can access desktop file systems, clipboards, drag and drop events, and system tray/notifications.

The Morph Application Platform for Java, a Platform as a Service (PaaS) that virtualizes the application environment and leverages cloud computing resources such as the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is now in limited developer preview. Webtide, the team behind Jetty, has brought that Java web server to the Morph Application Platform. Through its developer advice and support, Webtide has played a key role in the implementation of Java into the Morph Application Platform to extend the functionality to include deploying and delivering Java applications.

Telerik announced the landmark release of its Q1 2008 RadControls for ASP.NET AJAX and WinForms, and Telerik Reporting. The new release represents a final touch in Telerik's goal to offer a comprehensive and mature toolset of next-generation web and desktop components.

Nitobi enhanced its AJAX component suite with the release of Complete UI Q2 2008. This release strengthens the popular AJAX development tools with Safari 3 support, a new hierarchical grid component, a variety of new themes, and multi-component Dreamweaver extensions that make use-cases like master-detail grids even easier.

Apple's taken some heat lately for their decision to push Safari to anybody who runs their Apple Software Update utility. I didn't want Safari, but unless I opt out of it I'll get it. Now Sun and Google are doing the same thing with the Google Toolbar. It isn't enough that they allow you to opt-out.

The computer desktop today is what the television was to people in the 1980s. It's the single most important channel for consumer entertainment and information. The computer desktop - as was the case with newspapers before there was radio and radio before there was television - has become the high ground from which empires are built.

Catalyst Resources and Backbase announced an alliance to provide an end-to-end design and development solution for rich Customer Engagement and Enterprise AJAX applications. AJAX, already the technology of choice for rapid development and deployment of Rich Internet Applications, is being adopted at a rapid pace by small and medium size businesses as well as large enterprises. But companies face a number of hurtles as they try to make this RIA transition. While it is easy to add in a few flashy widgets to a webpage, it requires a different level of expertise to enhance user experience with measurable business value and develop code that is scalable, high performance, and easily maintained.

In the world of open source software Red Hat's crossed over from exciting leader to respectable elder statesman. The action is among the new batch of up-and-coming open source software companies who are not yet venture backed but are developing interesting technologies and services. Here are some of the companies that may well be the new open source superstars.

Curl announced the beta release of Curl Nitro, the code name for an extension of the Curl Rich Internet Application (RIA) platform which offers enhanced desktop capabilities required by today's enterprises. The Nitro extension simplifies the process of installing and managing Curl applications accessed via a browser as well as directly from the desktop. Curl Nitro is the only platform for both traditional RIA and Desktop RIA that provides enterprise-level security, high performance and support for large data sets.

Backbase introduced Customer Engagement 2.0, rich applications that help businesses make stronger, more profitable customer connections. The new application suite takes advantage of Web 2.0 technologies to ease and expand customer relationships. Backbase Customer Engagement 2.0 applications are built on top an Enterprise AJAX framework and are fully based on open AJAX industry standards.

Red Hat announced that Behr has migrated its Website from IBM WebSphere to JBoss Enterprise Application Platform in an effort to reduce total cost of ownership, increase reliability, eliminate vendor lock-in and accelerate its development lifecycle. The Behr.com Website is an important marketing tool for the company and was the centerpiece of a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign in 2007. With approximately 450,000 visitors per month and projected continuing growth, the Behr IT developers began to consider alternative technologies to meet the site's complex demands.

Web development and customer expectations have far outstripped the table management capabilities of HTML. The web needs to evolve to support building the Rich Internet Applications that people want to use. At the same time, web tools need to evolve to be able to handle the increasing complexity of building these apps. Is the only solution to improve the grid to break HTML by going to a proprietary solution like Silverlight? It is up to the AJAX and open source communities to 'liberate' the HTML web from the Unweb.

Silverlight 2.0 is a freaking phenomenal RIA development environment and I would actually, at this point, put the development experience in Silverlight 2.0 above and beyond Flex. I can do more faster and have it look better and run more efficiently in Silverlight 2.0 than I can in Flex. BUT, when you're looking for case studies, look for ones where the person or organization who adopted Silverlight did so of their own volition, without being approached by Microsoft. I'm interested in hardcore, unbiased opinions from people who have been in the trenches doing their own coding, not watching Microsoft consultants do the coding for them. There are plenty of case studies like that out there, you just have to look past the shiny bouncing balls that are the Olympics and the Oscars and all the other crap that probably cost Microsoft a hojillion dollars in marketing funds and incentives.

WaveMaker announced the appointment of Roger Sippl to the Board of Directors. With over 30 years of experience in building and managing enterprise software companies, Sippl will help guide WaveMaker as it continues to expand its AJAX open source Web application development platform. The company also closed $4.5 million in funding this month which will help fuel the continued growth of the company's developer community.

Cynergy Systems announced it has been selected by Microsoft to participate in the Microsoft Global Agency Initiative. This invitation-only initiative has resulted in a group of the top 20 interactive agencies that Microsoft recommends to its customers. Cynergy has developed a number of applications utilizing Microsoft Silverlight and Windows Presentation Foundation for customers. The company was also the national winner at last month's PhizzPop Design Challenge, a contest hosted by Microsoft where more than 30 Web design and development firms competed to develop the best rich Internet applications using Microsoft Silverlight.

Exadel announced Exadel dVision, the company's Rich Internet Application for on-demand access to enterprise data stored across multiple data sources, has been certified for MySQL Enterprise 5.0. As a MySQL Enterprise Certified Partner, Exadel's new enhanced support for the MySQL open source database software provides full integration between dVision and MySQL Enterprise.

We are entering an era of Rich Internet Applications (RIA) and enhancing the user experience of consumers of the services becomes an important part in designing and implementing SOA. But if you decide to develop rich clients, you'll be facing the dilemma - which way to go - remain with tried and true Java or .NET or experiment with such newcomers as AJAX, Flex, Silverlight, or JavaFX. While the Internet brings a lot of noise where 'it's cool' is the most popular definition, this presentation is an overview of what's out there on the enterprise RIA market. We'll talk about the pros and cons of using various techniques and technologies for the development of the front end for complex SOA distributed systems.

Cynergy Systems shared details of a Web 2.0 application that will drive change throughout the Real Estate industry. Known as EvolutionMLS , the browser and operating system-agnostic rich Internet application leverages the power of the Web to fully utilize the possibilities of the MLS (Multiple Listing Service).

Backbase introduced Enterprise AJAX 4.2, a new version of the AJAX framework. This new release gives developers more choice than any other AJAX framework. Choice translates into unmatched productivity, as AJAX developers can choose their preferred technology and methodology.

Gomez announced support for Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) 8 beta 1. Using the Gomez ExperienceFirst platform of on-demand web application experience testing and measurement services, developers can quickly understand how existing and new applications will look and perform in IE8, as well as the impact of IE8 on their infrastructure.

At the AJAXWorld 2008 East Conference, DreamFace Interactive launched their DreamFace Developer Challenge. DreamFace invited developers to download the new version of their DreamFace Web 2.0 Framework for creating Enterprise 2.0 Mashups, and to build their own DreamFace DataWidgets for submission.

At the AJAXWorld 2008 East Conference, DreamFace Interactive announced the availability of 'Outsider', a major new version of their DreamFace Web 2.0 Framework, for creating Enterprise 2.0 Composite Applications and Mashups. DreamFace builds on the concepts of Web 2.0: Do IT Yourself, Personalization and Sharing and extends them to provide the next generation Web 2.0 experience, targeting the enterprise with a solution to the data integration problem through secure client side integration.

Most of what is being produced even by the best Web designers right now is not useful, said EffectiveUI President Anthony Franco in his morning keynote at the 5th International AJAXWorld Conference & Expo in New York City last month. Displaying a Starbucks Coffee site that he called 'awful' and a Target.com site that he called 'not navigable,' Franco recounted how his hunt for bad experiences - sites not talking to their customers - led him to the conclusion that companies are in love with 'shiny objects' rather than actual useful and engaging online experiences.

ICEfaces 1.7 is here! A lot of sweat and a few tears went into it, and it took a little longer to arrive than many of us would have liked, but I think you'll be very pleased with how it turned out. The culmination of over 45 enhancements, 110 improvements, and 300 bug fixes, there's no question that it's a major leap forward in the evolution of ICEfaces. With significant enhancements and improvements in every direction you look, there is truly something here for everyone.

Because AJAX moves so much application logic from the server to the client, it forces many developers to master a wider range of web technologies than ever before. To work effectively on AJAX projects, front-end developers have to concern themselves with database performance, business logic and other server-side concerns. Back-end and middleware developers, meanwhile, have to make friends with XHTML, CSS, JavaScript and a wide range of browsers.

Silverlight 2.0 kicks ass and I can't wait to start dropping more hardcore blog posts regarding it. Scott Guthrie's tutorials are a fantastic place to start. The issue I have, however, is that all of the tutorials assume you have installed Silverlight 2.0 tools for VS 2008. There is a small issue with that and I'm not sure everyone's aware of it.

Appcelerator announced that it has updated its platform to allow applications built using Appcelerator to be deployed to the free new Google App Engine. Used together, the offerings give developers a fast route to developing, deploying, managing and scaling their applications. Appcelerator is an integrated platform that fuses RIA and service-oriented architecture (SOA). With Appcelerator, developers can assemble rich, interactive web applications without the need for JavaScript or player-based plug-ins.