The End Is Near
Mood:  hug me
Now Playing: 'This is a test - if this were not a test you would be SOL'
Topic: Calamity

If Microsoft is counting on exhibit_for_msft_response.pdf to prove "prior art", Microsoft shareholders should start getting shelac and brushes to use to decoupage their Microsoft shares once they lose the VCSY patent lawsuit.

UDATE

And IF I am allowed by the poorly acting site software I will endeavour to prove my contentions.

As it is, just logging in to this blog is a chore as the software is hanging up and not allowing free movement.

UPDATE

Apparently this blog site is no longer on-line. I shall retire to Laughing Place #3 and tell the story there that I have been denied the opportunity to tell here.

Mommy, that man is eating my teddy bear.
Mood:  hug me
Now Playing: Can't See the Intent for the Intent Poles - Consentual Camping Training Video (adult language)
Topic: Microsoft and VCSY

Masts and Sails! Either this is a flagship or a pirate ship. harrr. Best pump up me parrot and screw in the old powdered peg leg. Looks like more socializing with the hedge hogs.

Astoria and the Semantic Web

Kevin Hoffman's Blog

I have said it before and I'll say it again, Microsoft's Pablo Castro is one of the few people putting stuff out there from Microsoft that really seem to "get it". He knows how people want their data (well, he knows how I want my data, and that's really all that counts, right?) and he seems to be on the same page as everyone else that I have spoken to as far as the whole REST thing. People want their data to be located at discrete, uniquely identifiable URIs. End of story.

In case you have been living under a rock, or you really don't care about Microsoft's "data in the cloud" strategies, Pablo Castro is the technical lead responsible for such gems as the ADO.NET Entity Framework and Astoria. Astoria is a project that wraps up an Entity Data Model in a WCF service with a uniform URI query format that allows for RESTful access to relational data via XML, RDF, or JSON.

The notion of the semantic web isn't really all that new, but it has been gaining a lot of momentum lately. The short story is that right now everyone is using the Web to publish and view human-readable content. What we look at on a daily basis is graphical, textual, and has animations, flash, whatever. The bottom line is that the content is human-readable. The semantic web pushes forward the notion that in addition to using the web for human-readable content, it should be used for data as well. The means by which the data on the semantic web is accessed is through raw HTTP, through a standard representational format like XML or RDF. It's a fantastic theory but I think it's too eutopian at the moment. I don't think that anytime in the near future the web is going to be flooded with this huge sprawling green field of RESTful services exposing POX/RDF data for the entire world to consume. Ths is where technology and business diverge. Technologically speaking, the eutopian vision of the truly semantic web is quite possible, and many people are working toward that goal right now. If you look at it from a business perspective, however, the outlook is a little darker. Bottom line is that people aren't going to embrace the semantic web until they can make money off of it.

Tools like Astoria are a fantastic tool by which we can expose data in a way that jives with the vision of the semantic web. The problem is that there are business concerns to exposing data on the web, not the least of which is of course -how do you charge people for that data? How do you make money off of exposing that data? The great thing about a semantic web and standardized data location and access methods is of course mashups. If anybody knows how to get at your data, and they know that your data is referenced in a way that is similar to the way in which Bob is exposing his data, etc - then everyone can consume everyone's data and the entire world enters a euphoric bliss of data consumption.

So what I see really happening is that corporations are going to take baby steps. Perhaps they will adopt "semantic web" style philosophies internally... hopefully they will even be using Astoria to expose relational models and helper methods on top of those relational models to allow applications within a corporation to consume data. In my ideal world, this is the way much of an organization's data is exposed internally. The clash between technological philosophy and real-world business practice occurs when you try and deal with how to authenticate access to your data, how you charge for your data, and how you license your data, etc.

The great thing about tools like Astoria for exposing the data and tools like Silverlight for rendering exposed data is that regardless of what the business people decide the future of the semantic web is going to be - you'll be ready. In that regard, as long as people like Pablo Castro are still allowed to make some decisions within Microsoft, we will still see a steady stream of good things coming - at least from the data team, anyway.

 

UPDATE

 testing one two three

 

So far what's going on.
Mood:  lazy
Now Playing: Wiki Waky Taffy - Jungle book creators put wrong jacket on romance novel.
Topic: Calamity

Uhhh... This is, like, really weird, ok? We was all just having a hoot on Raging Bull and choochoo's all like 'Bro, Vertical Computers switch CEO's' and we're all 'No way.' and he's all 'Way bro.' and he has this URL and what it says on the piece below. Check it out and see if you can figure out what this means.

Vertical Computer Systems Inc. Announces Appointment Of ChairmanWed Jul 18 17:30:00 EDT 2007
Reuters
Vertical Computer Systems Inc. announced that Timothy Philip Read joins the Board of the Company as Executive Chairman. The Company also announced that Roy Spencer steps down as Chief Executive Officer of the Company and becomes a Non Executive Director of the Company. Stop.

Only one problem. That's not the CEO of VCSY. Richard Wade is the CEO. 

Now, that may not look like much to you, but to some it looks like VCSY has an announcement in the pipeline and some copy clerk and editor made a big time booboo.

We're waiting to see what the explanation will be.

It might mean we're rich but then again it might mean we're, like, out of chicken and pepsi.

Like, wow, man.

This update brought to you by The Hooka House the original hemp boutique south side of San Mateo and tell them Jerry sent ya.

UPDATE

The Reuters URL: http://stocks.us.reuters.com/stocks/keyDevelopments.asp?symbol=VCSY.OB&WTmodLOC=C3-News-8

Series 1 - post 1
Mood:  hug me
Now Playing: The Pie Eyed Piper - Townsfolk who loved to dance refuse to pay the band
Topic: Calamity

I decided to post a promised rackdown on a concept I've been waiting to show in the press. Now that it has (see this:  http://weblog.infoworld.com/yager/archives/2007/07/web_20_needs_ad.html  - again, thanks to POSCASH for understanding what this article is saying. POS is a fine example of our PHeaven BootUpTheButt Camp techno-novices who fundamentally leap-frog the existing technological world with a buzzword grasp that turns him into an information surgeon. [Tissue sample, lunch meat, if you slice the stuff thin and can look at it in an educated way, you end up with a happy customer instead a piece of dead meat]) I think a bit of education per patent examination will enlighten the reader's way a bit more.

I've dispensed with the comic book font for these Series posts (except for a friendly howdy or a sardonic "what the c:!$$$ are you people doing?") for clarity and reading ease and look forward to plotting out what VCSY technology means to the web world.

Thanks for your kind attention.

Series 1 - post 1. How to step over a stream.

Rule 0. Words that are in () are for your edification. (Don't go talking like that in a technological crowd because they will think you're a freak. It hurts feelings. Like asking for a boiled weinie in a Sushi restaurant.)

Rule 1. When it says ('reference:'), get your crackedass to a search engine and search the words after that reference.

Rule 2. Words that are in Rule 1 format but are not reference you can read at leisure. It will be better to read Rule 1 subjects first so you can have a background sufficient for appreciating Rule 2.

Rule 3. Words in "" are 'sardonic'.

(Nobody expects you to understand any of what you read, but we expect you to read it. It's the least you can do for the work we've put out for no pay. It will enrich your understanding of the industry [as it can be best read from a 15,000 foot level while watching the activity of everybody involved down there at 3000.] Read wikipedia if you can find one on the word.

What you will have after that is a 'buzzword' that people use as a shorthand to explain a very large concept in a word or phrase. Other's will understand, to some degree, the background information need to fully describe that buzzword subject, application and discipline in that order.

Some understand a substantial amount.

Some are like you.

It doesn't matter AS LONG AS YOU KNOW HOW THE BUZZWORD SUBJECT WORKS. If you don't STFU and listen. You will learn over time and then you can be a useful part of the conversation. Thank you for your kind attention. Now, on with the show and tell.)

Begin A:
Short story (from here to Mom's house):
One thing you need to remember and watch in the days, weeks, months and years ahead is this: AJAX = 7,076,521

What does that mean? It means, when AJAX evolves into an ultimately useful item, it will have succeeded in duplicating the claims of patent 7,076,521

-----------
Long story (from zero to first stage cutoff):
So, what does that mean? It means the work MSFT did in XMLhttp to build a client on the browser ultimately evolved into something that would listen for a call from the server while it sat on the browser acting as a client.

The button or image or hyperlink you pressed could send a signal to the server saying, hey, whatever display object this item is connected so, send that the information related to this thing (button, etc).

The server would then do whatever work it took to find that information (data processed) and would then send JUST THAT data (information transported) to the item on the page (usually a text box - any changing text on a web page is most likely in a text box) which would usually display the information in context with the rest of the page (since the textbox is supposed to be a part of the formatted content on the page).

So those are the steps and here is what that accomplished:

In traditional webpage programming, without such a client you have to send the requested information embedded in an entire copy of the web page. That is the cause of the latency (that delay between the time you pushed the 'send' button and the number in the box you entered actually showed up as a new number - it's the time it takes for the button to send the request and the time the browser takes to process the source code into a webpage for display - even if the round trip between the client and the process could be refined to 'zero', the time it takes for the browser to read the source code and interpret that code into the webpage display you see, including the new information you pressed the button for.) that drives you mad and makes it impossible for the internet to act as a computer.

So, Microsoft and others came up with something called XMLrequest which allowed the guy or gal (you) to push the button (which sends a request for data to be displayed like the previous example button did, but, this time with only the text that the button asked for - not the entire webpage).

So the server sends back this one piece of data and it goes directly to the item on the page (text box, image anchor, Flash(tm of Adobe) - anything on the web page you could tag as an item for showing data in context as information).

The web page sits there and does nothing because it never received any source code to execute (the web browser is a little software computer built on top of a hardware computer like your desktop or cell phone etc. - where the hardware is 'real' the software computer is 'virtual' [exists only as data] and thus is called a 'virtual machine' or VM).

But the little textbox next to the button you pushed just changed.

It will change as fast as it takes for the round trip from the client agent (the XMLrequest) to the server and back. Thus, the interaction has less latency (see there, now you're talking like a communications guru) and a more realtime 'look and feel'. Plus, this frees up the connection between your webpage and server by not having to send the webpage chunks again.

So, something like XMLhttp (which later morphed into 'XMLhttpRequest') by Microsoft is good to have as you can see.

It updates the information on a webpage with less latency (faster).

Good all around and nice to have. Essential to web application building.

Now, I want you to look at the eventual 'obvious' destination such an effort will take you. Like I said, you don't have to understand it, as long as you read it. The brain has a marvelous capability of allowing information to seep past the shallow associations we have in our brain's model of the day. In a few days it gets to becoming more clear and you have no idea where that information came from.

One of the Biblical guys said no man may receive (get to know) anything except it be from God ("the 'force'" imprints us with a pattern of logic and we think the thoughts) thus invention is a divine thing and most likely protected by the divinity doing the invention (programming).

(reference: DHTML, XML, XMLrequestHttp)

Glossary:
agent (a consumer of services that does other things)

United States Patent  7,076,521
Davison  July 11, 2006 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Web-based collaborative data collection system

Abstract
The present invention is directed to a system for gathering data from a web-based server, transmitting the data to a web-based client, and storing the data on the web-based client. The web-based server translates data from a data supplier's proprietary data model into a data consumer's proprietary data model using a data mapping function. The web-based server also converts data from a structured data format to a markup language format. The web-based client periodically polls one or more data servers for data. The web-based client receives data in a markup language format and translates it into a structured data format, then stores it in a database. The web-based client and the web-based server can collaborate with each other to streamline the data conversion and translation process.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Inventors:  Davison; Jeff (Rockledge, FL) 
Assignee: Vertical Computer Systems, Inc. (Los Angeles, CA)
 
Appl. No.:  09/882,494
Filed:  June 15, 2001

Pooky Pie on Steroids
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: Steroid Steel - Body builder notices soft spot at top of head is spreading
Topic: Integroty

I said it before and I'll say it again.

 

I would also think if Microsoft were so confident about their ability to fight this 744 patent fight, they would have given their response more visibility.

You know, like, encourage the troops with a demonstration of fighting spirit so the partners can tell they really should navigate toward the web services sea instead of setting the Captain adrift for stringing them along for so long.

If you've done any readign on the patents you're likely to be saying "Hell, that covers every aspect of computer construction on the web." and you would be right, sir or madam as the case may be.

BUT. There's one problem with your kneejerk response of 'too broad' or 'too obvious' and that's Microsoft's Friday evening filing of a response to VCSY's lawsuit that covers the web ecology patent 744. they disagree with your assertion by default. They aren't challenging the content or validity of the technology so the 'bull$#!@' tag that was thrown over VCSY stuff on this board last year is in the dumpster where it belonged all along.

You sorely misinformed those who read your thoughts.

It's going to cost all these trusting loyal partners some heartbreak and broken promises moments and years. I hope they can forgive that sort of betrayal. Delay delay delay their entry into the web arena... why, because Microsoft was afraid to have to face the 744 issue in public. So they waited because that's better than stepping out there and having to face it early?

Pretty sad legacy here for what Bill Gates' is leaving Microsoft shareholders holding. A wizard who can't float his own hot air balloons and a cowardly lion who can't face his own partners? Is Buffet the one without the heart? Is Gates the one without the brain?

So, like it or not, 744 covers web applications of all kinds and that covers web-operating systems.

And if they don't work out that imbroglio out they can't get to 521 which covers web-facing data trans-processes.

So. Hmmm. VCSy price is rock steady like it's been coming up to this day. Everybody's holding tight waiting for an announcement.

Microsoft... what's the price been doing with Microsoft's history of stock price? Holding flat for how many years? The market saying 'Show us something and we'll get excited.' MSFT saying 'Yeah, but you're really going to love what we put out when we finally produce something. hee hee' ... then telling pretty-partner to turn around and take it like a chump and not even an apology. Stupid partners. Didn't you know all this web services thing wasn't a fad. Just like you followed Bill Gates when he told you the internet was a fad. Are you all just legless sheep unable to move if you had a thought come across your mind?

Sounds like true love.

And Microsoft, bragging about their 'rights' would love to show you their long history of innovation but it's buried up to the hilt in partner pooh. But, HEY, We're all set to prove this bogus patent is bogus, like, if we... have to. We'll pull it out and reveal it for sure! Just you wait!

Yeah. That inspires safe and secure confidence like a prophylactic on a wedgie machine.

One foot on the platform, the other on the plane.
Mood:  celebratory
Now Playing: Muckmuck's Vacation - Caveman rediscovers roots in under-developed countries.
Topic: Microsoft and VCSY

And this is so important I thought I should post it in two places at once.

Will Microsoft be reverse engineering 521?

Is this a test rocket or a cannonball?

It's my opinion this is not doable without stepping on 521 claims. I am open to debate anyone who says they think Microsoft is doing it differently.

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=582
July 17th, 2007
Microsoft offering Office 2007 for rent on a monthly basis
Posted by Mary Jo Foley @ 12:11 pm

Looks like Microsoft’s intial pilots of pay-as-you-go pricing for Office were successful.

Microsoft has expanded its Office rental trial in South Africa to include Office 2007. Microsoft will make Office 2007 available for 199 rand ($28.54) for a three-month subscription, according to a Reuters report. First-time users willg et an extra three months for free, Reuters said. (Thanks to Bink.nu for the link to the Reuters story.)

Microsoft has been testing pay-as-you-go schemes for Office 2003 in several developing countries, including South Africa, company officials said earlier this year. At that time, Microsoft officials said the Office rental trials were also in full-swing in Mexico and Romania. Back in January, Microsoft was planning to decide “in the next couple of months” whether to extend the program to include Office 2007.

I’ve asked Microsoft whether it plans to extend this program and offer Office 2007 on a subscription basis in other countries. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, would you be interested in renting Office — or any other Microsoft app — on a monthly basis? Why or why not?

The Neverending Story
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: Etched in Stone - Moses drops hammer on mountainview
Topic: Microsoft and VCSY

Some folks think I have no life. Of course I do. This is it. What would I do if I didn't have this hobby? Maybe finish my model airplane.

157635	Oh Microsoft virtualization is good enough to bea	yo-eleven	17 Jul 2007 3:46 PM EDT
157634	Folks are free to comment anywhere. I am thus NOT	yo-eleven	17 Jul 2007 3:42 PM EDT
157633	Dear RB Moderator - I apologize for the number of	yo-eleven	17 Jul 2007 3:40 PM EDT
157632	Ouch.	yo-eleven	17 Jul 2007 3:37 PM EDT
157631	"In some ways, though, the online world is l	yo-eleven	17 Jul 2007 3:36 PM EDT
157630	I'm laying in a record for you to explain to the	yo-eleven	17 Jul 2007 3:32 PM EDT
157629	"...a performance nonetheless that put the o	yo-eleven	17 Jul 2007 3:30 PM EDT
157628	yoyo, You're pumpin' a dry well.	nicheslapper	17 Jul 2007 3:27 PM EDT
157627	Ballmer "...lectured with little humor and m	yo-eleven	17 Jul 2007 3:24 PM EDT
157626	Before we launch off into any technical explanati	yo-eleven	17 Jul 2007 3:23 PM EDT
157625	And here's a list of dates and events to give the	yo-eleven	17 Jul 2007 3:09 PM EDT
157624	correction 721= 521 aka Patent 7,076,521	yo-eleven	17 Jul 2007 3:00 PM EDT
157623	Problem? Yes. MSFT does not have free access to 7	yo-eleven	17 Jul 2007 2:57 PM EDT

 

Rock and Roll Cooty Goo
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: Knock About the Block - Auto damage & auto repair (instructional)
Topic: Calamity

For those of you who don't get out much, here's a little slice of Raging Bull for your edification. It's not often you get service like this. It's like being there without having to go there.

 

Post new message  | Refresh list
Msg. #	Subject	Posted by	Date
190567	admist = admits. sorry. pesky typos mean somethin	yo-eleven	16 Jul 2007 2:21 AM EDT
190566	Besides, neepaddie, don't you want Microsoft get	yo-eleven	16 Jul 2007 2:20 AM EDT
190565	irule: Where did you go? Come out to play, pretty	RapidRobert2	16 Jul 2007 2:17 AM EDT
190564	Another basher doing the 'FRANTIC PANIC' DANCE of	RapidRobert2	16 Jul 2007 2:17 AM EDT
190563	last = lost. sorry. damn typos. eom	yo-eleven	16 Jul 2007 2:14 AM EDT
190562	OH! irule, techlaw, lawtech, teklaw..or whatever	RapidRobert2	16 Jul 2007 2:13 AM EDT
190561	OH! irule, techlaw, lawtech, teklaw..or whatever	RapidRobert2	16 Jul 2007 2:13 AM EDT
190560	neepadder - Wade's a genius for having secured th	yo-eleven	16 Jul 2007 2:12 AM EDT
190559	Because 'some' lawyer only got a 'few thousand' b	RapidRobert2	16 Jul 2007 2:08 AM EDT
190558	A wantabe lawyer who will never make the bar sugg	RapidRobert2	16 Jul 2007 2:06 AM EDT
190557	niche - did you know that's exactly the same lang	yo-eleven	16 Jul 2007 2:03 AM EDT
190556	irule - If they are basing their position on comm	yo-eleven	16 Jul 2007 1:56 AM EDT
190555	Yo...	nicheslapper	16 Jul 2007 1:50 AM EDT
190554	irule - why would it be impossible for MSFT and V	yo-eleven	16 Jul 2007 1:32 AM EDT
190553	Will one of you learned pumpers...	irule	16 Jul 2007 1:26 AM EDT
190552	Load..	nicheslapper	16 Jul 2007 1:20 AM EDT

Tickle me Elbow.
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Pervasive Computing

An interesting bit of reference knowledge:

An Overview: Where Things Stand in IBM, Novell, and Red Hat

Sunday, July 15 2007 @ 10:01 AM EDT

I thought it would be useful, judging from some recent confusion in the media, to highlight the latest goings on in all the ongoing cases in the SCO saga all on one page, so everyone can follow the bouncing ball. That will mean some slight repetition for some of us, but it also will make it easier for those who don't follow the SCO saga as intently as we do to grasp the current picture. The very latest is that the court has signed [PDF] the stipulated adjustments the parties proposed to the pre-trial schedule in Novell, there was a SCO status report [PDF] filed in Red Hat and here's Red Hat's latest [PDF], and there was a goofed up filing in IBM, where SCO filed its memorandum in opposition to Novell's evidentiary objections (2nd objections; Novell reply to SCO) in the IBM docket by mistake, and IBM has asked for a 30-day extension of various pretrial scheduled items. But now, let's look at the overview to see how they all interrelate, and I'll also try to give you a picture of what trial preparation in Novell is probably like right about now.

You can read the rest at Groklaw.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070715072440971

Once Upon a Coma...
Mood:  hug me
Now Playing: Who Pawned the Peon? - Lost art found in art-dealer's basement
Topic: SaaS

How popular would 'Emily' be right now if Emily had been allowed to operate out in public unmolested like the giant companies do? You know... what would Emily have been known as today? Would she be as popular and necessary to the next information revolution as, say, AJAX?

I think Emily can be shown to have had a much greater potential for a much more rapid adoption rate than AJAX has shown. AJAX has been developed in public since March 2005. Emily was selling products in 2001. The fact AJAX has taken so long and still has a long way to go to become a robust platform for critical real time distributed use decries the 'obvious' tag for VCSy technology.

http://ajax.sys-con.com/read/400297.htm

By any reckoning, the Internet and the World Wide Web have remade the way we do business. The ascendance of the Web-based enterprise has come to be seen as inevitable. But anyone who takes a hard look at the serious limitations of first-generation Web applications is likely to have a renewed sense of wonder at the spread of their adoption thus far. Users experimented with e-mail, instant messaging, and search engines and turned them into real communication, collaboration, and information-gathering tools. Those same business users endured their fitful interactions with static HTML pages and moved applications to the Web anyway because of the substantial savings promised by the shift. 

Now their patience is about to be rewarded. Emerging from a decade of groundwork is Web 2.0, which offers dramatic gains in productivity for individual workers and whole enterprises. Web 2.0 applications are distributed collaborative tools available on-demand from any browser anywhere. And those tools are constructed to be at least as intuitive and easy-to-use as any application loaded on a desktop.

Web 2.0 is based on many technologies - most prominent among them being Web Services, Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX), Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and Really Simple (Web) Syndication (RSS) - and the list will continue to grow. Of these, AJAX has attracted the most attention recently because it's the technology that most effectively fills the gap between the user experience of Web and desktop applications.

And the user experience is absolutely central to the Web 2.0 model. Web 2.0 applications must possess a set of user interface components that are as compelling and responsive as a desktop-based environment. Developers can no longer be satisfied to offer discontinuity in user experience, because widely distributed, frequently mobile users won't be able to tolerate it and do their jobs well. The improved user experience will include, but must extend beyond, the most common productivity tools, such as word processing applications and e-mail. Web 2.0 and AJAX-based applications represent an opportunity to fully realize the Web's potential to make users smarter and more productive, and that opportunity extends to the most sophisticated back-end and analytic applications.

How We Got Here: Evolutionary Steps to Web 2.0
As any significant technology evolves toward maturity, attention shifts from the technology itself to the work that the technology enables. That shift is clearly manifest in Web 2.0, the third major phase of the Web's evolution, which can be summarized like this:

• Web 1.0 - Content delivery and communication. This early stage changed the dissemination of information via two innovations, HTML pages and e-mail.
• Web 1.5 - Content personalization and multi-level communication. Search and personalization made the spread of information more efficient, while chat rooms and instant messaging expanded communication in real-time.
• Web 2.0 - Authoring and collaboration. This current stage is not about the dissemination of information, it's about productivity - accomplishing work-related tasks in a virtual space with tools and applications that are available anywhere, at any time, and can be shared collaboratively.

In the past, Web applications' lack of responsiveness and dearth of controls offset most of their advantages as thin-client tools. In contrast, desktop developers have historically taken advantage of two capabilities of Windows that make applications more intuitive and user-friendly than their Web counterparts: richness and responsiveness. When a complex and robust set of UI components is combined as they have been on the desktop, they make the user interface natural, informative, and intuitive to use. And when the application and the user interface quickly adapt to user actions, they create an uninterrupted interaction. Windows applications don't stop to reload, forcing users to move through tasks in stops and starts - or causing them to lose the thread of the business process entirely.

The user experience gap between Windows and the Web has been due to the limitations of the early Web client/server model, with the Web server as the platform for all processing logic and the browser as the client handling nothing more than the data display. In this architecture, users interact with HTML and each of their actions triggers a request to the server, which in turn triggers the generation of a new page.

The incessant reloading of the page severely limits the user experience for a couple reasons. First, flipping from page to page can disorient the user as the allocation of tasks on different page views causes loss of context. On top of that, reloading the page causes a disjointed and rigid interactive flow. The user has to wait for the next page to initiate a new interaction or change the workflow, or be bounced back to the previous page to alter information in a field. Think of the online shopper on a retail site who can't order three shirts instead of two without returning to page one, and then extend the problem to business users struggling with enterprise applications throughout their workday.

The difficulties of the interaction are compounded as the complexity of applications and user options increases. For example, imagine the user experience of writing a document in an application created in Web client/server mode. For each paragraph, the user must open a dialog, enter the text in the input box, and wait for the changes to be applied to the document when the page is refreshed. And then all the steps must be repeated for every edit or format change. The frustrated user needs plenty of patience and training to work with the tool.

Enter AJAX
By contrast, AJAX combines technologies such as asynchronous JavaScript, the Document Object Model, XMLhttpRequest, XHTML, and CSS so the user can incrementally update any element of an application that resides in the browser. The user never leaves the application - never loses context or suffers interrupted workflow - because no action triggers the reloading of a full page.

This seemingly small change has a profound effect on the user's experience. Transferring more of the interaction to the client side not only improves the workflow, it also allows the addition of enriching UI components, which put AJAX-based Web applications on a par with desktop applications for usability. There are, it should be noted, alternatives to AJAX - Adobe's Flash technology also provides a means to develop rich clients and DHTML allows one to partially upload components on an HTML page without reloading the entire page. But AJAX's combination of cross-browser compatibility, zero footprint, and ability to provide interactive complexity to the user gives it a leg up on the competitive technologies.

The improved interactivity of Web 2.0 applications is driving even more applications off the desktop, since the lower total cost of ownership now comes without the offsetting negatives of cumbersome user experience. These transitional Web 2.0 applications enabled by AJAX have been productivity tools, such as word processing and e-mail applications, calendars and spreadsheets. Examples are Google's recently released Writely and Google Spreadsheets; competitive word processors like Zoho Writer, Abe Writeboard, and ajaxWrite; Num Sum spreadsheet functionality; and 30 boxes, a Web-based calendar. Web-based desktops are also emerging, like the one available at www.desktoptwo.com.

Their lower TCO comes from centralizing most of the software in a single location on the server, with only a browser installed on desktops throughout the organization. This lowers installation and maintenance costs, provides for incremental upgrades to existing applications, creates user administration savings, and offers enterprise-wide control over document backup and archiving, as well as compliance and security. The Web 2.0 model makes applications instantly available to users, eliminating desktop installations. And it's a model that can be extended to applications across the enterprise.

For example, as sophisticated analytics and business intelligence information are pushed further out into the enterprise, it is essential that applications deliver the information smoothly, clearly, and in an uninterrupted context. AJAX provides the foundation for user interfaces based on reusable components, each of which enables a set of UI functions that can be manipulated individually for or by the user. The flexibility inherent in AJAX-enabled applications translates into quick, easy rollouts of new functionality as user needs change, as well as the ability to customize the interface for users based on their roles and specific needs. Improving the user experience translates into a parallel improvement in the user's ability to apply high-level information to the decision-making process, which is, after all, the goal of business intelligence.

Organizations were moving applications to the Web even before the emergence of Web 2.0 and AJAX-based tools because cost savings were so attractive that they trumped the limitations of first-generation Web applications. Now, with Web 2.0 applications that provide a user experience equal to that of desktop applications, that trend is going to build momentum rapidly.

For several years, enthusiasts have predicted that the impact of the Internet and the Web will rival that of the Industrial Revolution. Driven by the same need to use resources more effectively and increase productivity as that earlier transformation, Web 2.0 could make those predictions come true. But instead of centralizing workers and machines in factories, Web 2.0 will liberate a distributed, mobile workforce by offering consistent access to applications and information anywhere in the complex world of the global enterprise.