WaveMaker announced the release of its WaveMaker Visual AJAX Studio version 3.1.1 for building Enterprise Web 2.0 applications. WaveMaker's Visual AJAX Studio lets users create database-driven AJAX Web applications without having to write complex code. New WaveMaker features significantly reduce development time while enabling increased participation, feedback and collaboration.

GI powers apps that look and feel and perform like classic desktop programs but run in the browser and Fortune-scale companies currently use it for rapid web application development and deployment on top of their XML and SOAP data sources. Hakman is on the steering committee of the OpenAjax Alliance and chairs its IDE working group, which includes Adobe, IBM, Sun, Microsoft and Eclipse. The group is reportedly close to delivering a draft specification for a uniform way to describe AJAX libraries and controls.

Anytime you can create a blog post about the .NET Framework that also includes borrowed half-quotations from Lord of the Rings, you've got to take that opportunity. Like pretty much every other RIA developer, I am sitting back anxiously awaiting the arrival of Silverlight 2.0. Silverlight 2.0, to me, represents the idea of what Silverlight should have been from the start. It is a rich, full-featured, amazingly powerful subset of WPF that runs on a miniature CLR and allows developers to re-use their existing experience, design patterns, skills, knowledge, and abilities with C#, .NET, and WPF. It also allows designers to re-use their knowledge and experience using the Expression Blend suite of products for producing XAML-based designs and artifacts.

The Spry framework provides a lightweight, flexible set of tools for building rich user interfaces and integrating XML and JSON data into Web pages. This session will explore the fundamentals of the Spry framework including dynamic datasets, widgets and visual effects, as well as broader tips and tricks for developing engaging, AJAX-based Websites.

Powerful, unprecedented demographic and economic trends are propelling dramatic long-term growth in the wealth management industry. At the same time, competitive forces are driving rapid productivity gains in wealth management firms. Those firms who leverage information technology (IT) to create business agility will be the clear winners. We believe that IT agility enables business agility, and that software platforms are the key enablers of IT agility. This paper presents actual case studies where Web 2.0 and AJAX applications are being deployed in wealth management firms and summarizes the benefits, challenges and lessons learned.

By producing a popular gadget you can distribute your code to millions of users practically overnight. Most gadgets are designed to gather data from the Web and then present that data to the user. In order to enable this functionality, Google Gadgets support a rich programming model based on based on JavaScript and the Gadgets' API. Unfortunately, rich platforms tend to lead to programming errors and security issues. The user of a poorly written gadget can have their online accounts breached, Web site passwords compromised, local computer data stolen and even lose control of their computer. This presentation, via code snippets, flow diagrams and other means, discusses how to write a gadget that avoids these pitfalls.

Complex event processing and RIA used together turbo charge application development. In this presentation we base our story around real life success in building a real-time trading application. A thrilling demo is included.

REST and AJAX are two of the hottest buzzwords in the Web. While one describes an high-level architectural style of creating highly scalable Web applications, the other is used to create innovative and highly-interactive client-side Web applications. With the open source Apache Sling Framework and its integrated µjax (microjax) library, client side AJAX developers can tap into the power of REST-based architectures powered by enterprise-grade content repositories such as Apache Jackrabbit or Day CRX. Accessing Java Content Repositories via AJAX allows developers accessing all of their organization's content using one simple, lightweight API that nicely weaves into their interactive Web application. This talk introduces REST, JCR and Sling and shows how to use its power using the µsling library.

Fueled by the explosive growth in digital media and user generated content, the demand for storage has increased exponentially, placing significant stress on current 'in house' storage architectures and costly overcapacity build-outs. Factoring in time-to-market pressures as well as power, space, large capital expenditures, global performance, load balancing and availability issues, companies are faced with an exploding challenges and costs to go with the exploding storage demand. Bottom line, companies must take a new approach to storage. Companies need to move from the old and out-dated storage 1.0 model of 'do everything yourself' to a new storage 2.0 model. The storage 2.0 model delivers persistent storage on demand to applications regardless of location and pre-defined boundaries and meets the performance and scalability characteristics of the Web applications.

The absence of JavaScript support in today's search engine crawlers presents a serious SEO dilemma for Websites generating some or all of their content with JavaScript DOM manipulation. A quick glance at a million server headers eaten by Splunk and crawled by Grub shows the severity of the problem. A solution is presented by using a ghosting application in front of the Web server doing source rendering with a third party JavaScript engine library for various crawlers. The solution enables a Website to deliver rendered page content for crawlers, which subsequently increases the site's ranking. Using memcached, a scalable solution is provided for increasing throughput on large or busy sites.

Microsoft introduced Silverlight as cross-platform, cross-browser next generation RIA solution. No matter you have LAMP, ASP.NET or JAVA Web application, you can take advantage of Silverlight to impress your user with the 'WOW' effects. This session will use real world implementations to show you how to build a Silverlight application from start to finish, as well overall strategy why we should or shouldn't use Silverlight.

jMaki is an AJAX framework that provide a wrapper over rich widgets from multiple toolkits such as Yahoo!, Dojo and many others. jMaki-wrapped widgets can be easily used in a JSP, Rails, PHP and Phobos app. This session will explain what jMaki is and show using live code demos how easy it is to embed jMaki widgets in different pages.

Caucho presents a new API and infrastructure for Enterprise Comet applications which takes care of issues such as thread and session management, while using an interface familiar to Java developers who have used JavaEE Servlets. Demos will be presented which use this framework and GWT to streaming data in a financial application. Benchmarks will also be presented which show the server load and network impact of large numbers of clients. This Comet API, part of Caucho's Resin Enterprise Application Server, is available today for download and evaluation.

AJAX isn't just for rich UIs and mashups anymore. Web 2.0 has infiltrated the enterprise workforce, and IT departments all around the world just like yours are feeling the pressure to make every back-office, call center, trading blotter, inventory management, and systems performance application look and feel like iGoogle or MyESPN.com. Simply slapping on a few AJAX widgets will make these applications look cooler, but what about business logic, data integration, and replicating the business processes? Join Coach Wei, CTO and founder of Nexaweb, and Bob Buffone, Nexaweb's Chief Architect, for a candid, fast-paced discussion anchored by real-world customer examples demonstrating how you can use AJAX and RIA technology to truly take your business applications to the next level!

Syndication has long been a staple of AJAX development, but increasingly syndication languages such as Atom are becoming the primary vectors for more sophisticated data applications, and in the process may make SOAP/WSDL based Web services architectures increasingly obsolete. This session looks at how Atom, AtomPub and AJAX are changing the way that we pass all types of information on the Web.

qooxdoo is a comprehensive and innovative open-source Web application framework (http://qooxdoo.org). In this session, you will learn how to leverage object-oriented JavaScript to build professional AJAX applications. No HTML, CSS nor DOM knowledge is needed to create impressive user interfaces for all common Web browsers. qooxdoo's wide array of widgets will be demonstrated as well as the amazing theming capabilities that allow for virtually any look. Its platform-independent tool chain will be introduced that covers features like internationalization, live debugging, source code validation, unit testing, functional testing, profiling, auto-generated API documentation, JavaScript linking, modularizing large-scale applications, migration support and more.

If you have not been introduced to the concept of the 'Comet programming', then now is the time to become acquainted. Comet is a revolutionary technology that replaces the old request-response driven Web development model and the use of polling. With this new client-server communication technique, developers can now build real-time Web applications that implement a true event-driven model with little need for third-party plug-ins. But is this a technique for every developer and for every Web application? How easy is it to create a real-time Web application that goes beyond 'chat'? What is needed to successfully create and deploy a real-time Web application?

One of the big challenges to success with enterprise application deployments is securing active user participation. Applications have historically been difficult to use, and user interfaces have been slow to catch up with modern Web 2.0 and Smartphone technologies. Dispelling this stodgy image of enterprise software applications, SAP recently released a revolutionary new product update for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) in December 2007. A key feature bridging the gap between powerful enterprise applications and ease of use and coolness of modern technologies is SAP CRM's compatibility with Apple's iPhone. This session will feature SAP CRM's approach to the iPhone platform, and the experiences gained so far.

Come learn how to take your UI to the next level with Silverlight. You'll see how powerful Zoomable interfaces can be built (hint: bring some 3D Red and Blue glasses!), how ink can be integrated into your Web UI, how internationalization is a piece of sushi and how rolling your own controls is well-easy.

Enterprises are enthusiastically embracing the shift from traditional client/server computing to SaaS. Inspired by customers who have embraced the Web, developers are using RIA tools to create innovative new on-demand business applications. One important factor in the shift from traditional computing to SaaS has been ease of use through vendors' careful attention to the user experience utilizing RIA technologies. This session will present how RIA technologies such as AJAX and Flex - in combination with the Force.com platform - provide all the tools necessary for developers to build an enterprise-class application - sometimes within hours!

Last year, the overall demand for RIAs outpaced the qualified supply chain. Industry analysts expect the explosive growth to continue in 2008. Anthony Franco, President, EffectiveUI, will discuss how this unprecedented increase in RIA adoption - especially by the Fortune 500 - will enable companies to hone their competitive edge and improve core business practices with fast, reliable, productivity-enhancing tools. While the world of RIAs can be fraught with costly risk, the flip side of the coin is that good RIAs can provide your customers with user experiences that leave your competition in the dust. If you keep the risks and rewards front of mind, you can turn the 2008 RIA challenge into successful opportunities.

The Web 2.0 movement has created a paradigm shift in enterprise platforms - the emergence of Web-based platforms that let developers build innovative, revenue-generating applications for targeted demographics. Developers will capitalize on these platforms to build applications based on users' identity, context and presence. Rearden Commerce offers developers this platform today, harnessing Web 2.0 technologies that help people find services and goods they need based on preferences, location and previous searches. Rearden Commerce's CEO, Patrick Grady, will discuss the future of Web-based enterprise platforms and ecosystems, and how developers can reap rewards from building personalized applications for these environments.

Jeff Haynie will introduce the audience to Appcelerator's open-source RIA platform. Attendees will learn how Appcelerator has been able to help developers create AJAX-based RIAs in less than 1/3 of the time, with up to 90 percent less code, and with no Javascript or third-party toolkits. Key takeaways from the session will include: Developing fully-functional, client-only prototypes without writing a line of server codeCreating service-oriented UIs that can simultaneously access services in any language without code changes and Decoupling client and server components for accelerated development, simplified maintenance and rapid iterations. Haynie will also discuss the current technology options for rapid RIA development and how developers can leverage pre-built AJAX widgets, Web Expression Language, and other open standards-based languages to create RIAs with more functionality and less code.

In this presentation, we'll introduce Laszlo Webtop 1.2, a framework built on OpenLaszlo for delivering multiple RIA/AJAX-based communications and collaboration applications. Coupled with Webtop's breakthrough cinematic user interface is a corresponding server-based SOA framework that provides advanced data management APIs, manages authentication and single-sign on, and includes other features that make an extensible, performant desktop-in-a browser a reality. Attendees will experience a live Webtop demo, showcasing applications including an address book, a mail client, IM, and photo viewing - all with breakthrough integration via drag and drop of Smart Objects. Finally, they will be shown how the world's leading service providers are already using Webtop today to deliver a unified communications experience and to consistently engage their subscribers.

In addition to his historic role on the steering committee of the OpenAjax Alliance, Kevin currently chairs the organization's integrated development environment working group. The OpenAjax Alliance IDE Working Group which includes Adobe, Aptana, the Eclipse Foundation, IBM, Microsoft, Sun, TIBCO and others is now close to delivering a draft specification for a uniform way to describe Ajax libraries and controls and thus streamline the ability to use Ajax libraries within your development tools of choice. Kevin is a frequent speaker at Ajax industry events and is an author to many published articles on Ajax in the enterprise.

ILOG. a member of the OpenAjax Alliance, announced that its graphical visualization offering for Adobe Flex, ILOG Elixir, is shipping with feature and sales channel enhancements. ILOG Elixir, available now, was warmly received by the Adobe Flex community during its Beta period.

Eighteen months ago Flex 2 was released, which literally changed the way people think of rich Internet applications. Since then lots of things have happened in the Flex community. In 2007 Adobe announced that Flex will go open source, and now it has happened. All ActionScript 3 and Java code including Flex compilers and debugger (FDB) are going open source. And let?s not forget about the number of other open source products released by Adobe during the same period of time.

'With Market Replay, users can discover exactly how orders interacted with the market down to the millisecond at which the trade occurred, all in an easy-to-use visual tool,' said NASDAQ Executive Vice President Adena Friedman as NASDAQ today launched Market Replay was developed with Adobe Flex 3 and deployed on Adobe AIR, both of which also launched today.

'This is an exciting time for Adobe, for innovation in software, and for designers and developers who are driving the Web forward,' said Adobe CTO Kevin Lynch today as Adobe announced the availability of Adobe AIR and Adobe Flex 3 software, furthering the Adobe technology platform for rich Internet applications (RIAs).

It is clear that RIAs offer the potential to fundamentally change the user experience and in doing so, yield significant business benefits. However, in order for RIAs to be widely employed, and for more companies to receive these kinds of returns, technologies to build RIAs will need to appeal to a wider range of developers. The ability to cost effectively create rich, engaging user experiences that support corporate objectives and reach a broader developer audience without sacrificing development productivity require a new generation of RIA tools.

Ulitzer.com which initially made the headlines with its 'job descriptions from the future,' announced that it will launch its Ulitzer 'beta' site on July 4, 2008, with 5,500 authors and 600,000 original articles, published in more than 5,000 topic-specific online journals. Each journal offers up to 14 content-specific sections, written by the world's most-respected authors, who are experts in their particular fields. All Ulitzer authors will get paid for their contributions. Ulitzer will be based on Drupal 6.0 CMS platform.

Enterprise mashups - the convergence of Web 2.0 mashups and service-oriented architecture (SOA) - can create a world of opportunities for enterprises to come up with internal and customer-facing self-service, composite and 'situational' applications. These applications can be created just-in-time by empowered enterprise business users and by simply combining SOA-enabled information sources and services or SOBAs (service-oriented business application) on the intranet and Internet.

I am always being told off by i-technologists for quoting Picasso as having said that computers are useless. But I still love his reasoning: 'Because they can only give you answers.' Picasso, like AJAXWorld Magazine, liked questions. So we thought we would share with you what some of the world's leading rich Internet application pioneers are thinking may be the next questions that we need to see answered. From that, readers can themselves infer: where is AJAX headed next?

If you are starting a new AJAX project, I highly recommend that you watch the video of a presentation made by an expert AJAX developer Joseph Smarr from Plaxo. Joseph is very experienced AJAX developer, and if after watching this presentation you don't get goose bumps, go ahead and start your next RIA project with AJAX.

SYS-CON.TV's 'Rich Internet Applications Shootout' presented by AJAXWorld Magazine, streamed live from SYS-CON.TV's Times Square Studios. During the program, several emerging Rich Web technologies were discussed by a panel of RIA experts and SYS-CON's industry bloggers.

ICEsoft Technologies is a leading provider of standards-compliant, AJAX-based solutions for developing and deploying Java EE, rich Internet applications. The company's portfolio of enterprise level Java products includes ICEfaces, an AJAX application framework that enables Java EE application developers to easily create and deploy thin-client rich Web applications in pure Java.

As the momentum for the new class of SOA middleware continues to grow, developers are looking for simple yet scalable solutions that can integrate disparate data across a variety of on-premises, on-demand and Web 2.0 information sources and applications. With many of such data integration problems being relatively small in scope, companies can't justify bringing expensive middleware to solve small problems. Some of the projects are built using work-arounds and custom coding. The result is prone to operational risk, high maintenance costs, and is inevitably inefficient. After this session you will: Understand the impact of data mashups on developer community, Find out how to select mashup technologies and tools for your next data integration project, Discover tips, best practices, and strategies for leveraging these tools and solving most common challenges.

When it comes to rich Internet application (RIA) technologies, application development professionals must choose between two paths: AJAX or Adobe. AJAX is the best bet for experienced Web development shops looking to incrementally evolve existing Web applications. Of course, selecting AJAX also raises the question of whether to go with a homegrown, open source, or commercial AJAX framework.

AJAXWorld in 2007 was sponsored by the world's leading rich web technology providers including: 3Tera, Addison-Wesley, Adobe, Apress, Backbase, Bindows, Conference Guru, Cynergy Systems, Dynamic Toolbar, Extension Media, Farata Systems, Flash Goddess, FrogLogic, GoingToMeet.com, Google, Helmi Technologies, IBM, ICEsoft, ILOG, IT Mill, Ittoolbox, JackBe, JetBrains, Kaazing, Krugle, Laszlo Systems, Lightstreamer, Manning Publications, Methods & Tools, Microsoft, Nexaweb, OpenSpot, OpSource, Oracle, Parasoft, Passport Corporation, PushToTest, Quasar Technologies, Rearden Commerce, Servoy, SmartClient / Isomorphic Software, SnapLogic, Sun Microsystems, TechTracker Media, Tele Atlas, The Thomson Corporation, ThinWire, TIBCO Software, TileStack, Universal Mind, Vertex Logic, Web Spiders, and Webtide.

Project Insight has released new upgrades in 7.1 that feature the ability to create Project Insight tasks and issues from Outlook e-mails, an AJAX-enabled, team member customizable time entry grid; portfolio, project, and task snapshot reports; project profitability and recovery reports; and new time/expense configuration options.