Offering regional and national programs, CIO (and CSO) events bring together some of the most respected names and thought leaders in information technology and security. Presented by CIOs and other senior level executives, these invitation-only programs offer timely topics and strong networking. Learn More »
Public Council Teleconference: Application Rationalization — Hidden Costs and Smart Decisions
November 17 at 11:00 am US/Eastern (GMT-5)
Join Honorio Padrón, of The Hackett Group, who will share the drivers for companies to tackle application rationalization and the results of research that define the hidden cost of complexity. Additionally, we will discuss key decision milestones—to start or not, holding the course steady and fulfilling expectations.
Virtual Desktop Cost-Benefit Analysis — Michael Jacobs, Catlin Group
The analysis contained in this presentation measures the cost of everything from the machines and licenses to the infrastructure for virtual vs. traditional desktop environments.
Honor your best senior team members - Apply for the CIO Ones to Watch Award
Get well-earned public recognition for your top up-and-coming team members, your IT organization and your enterprise. Award winners will be announced, publicized and feted in May 2010, great timing to help attract new IT recruits to your company.
Learn more about the CIO Executive Council »February 15, 2006 — CIO —
Like vintage bowling shirts and wearing your pajamas to school, asynchronous JavaScript with XML, a.k.a. Ajax, seems to have begun as a West Coast fad. But it’s quickly gaining acceptance worldwide as developers look to design Web interfaces that hook users with their speed and ease of use.
But while clothing trends come and go, Ajax looks like it may stick around, offering Web developers a means to create rich clientlike applications on webpages without resorting to huge amounts of code or forcing users to download plug-ins. However, like every hot new Web technology, CIOs must hold firm against the regular barrage of "if Google is doing it, why can’t we?" and find the underlying value in Ajax for their particular companies.
Freely draggable satellite images on Google maps. Instant spellchecking in Gmail. They’re cool features. Admit it. The launch of tools such as those revitalized interest in both the online mapping and Web-mail markets. With a flourish, Google demonstrated that browser-based applications could support rich clientlike capabilities and performance—without the rich client.
The secret sauce was a clever combination of JavaScript and XML. XML-based data could be pre-downloaded into the user’s browser where JavaScript code could quickly perform operations on it—sorting a list of products or e-mail on the fly, for instance, or letting you drag map images around the screen—without the tedious back and forth between browser and server.
The idea was not new: Developers have been using JavaScript and locally cached data to offer rich interfaces since the ’90s. But the stars had not yet aligned. Most users still connected to the Internet via dial-up connections, making background data downloads tricky. Browser compatibility with JavaScript was hit or miss. And limited processing power on client PCs could throttle the performance of all but the most simple JavaScript applications.
Over time, JavaScript began to fall out of vogue in favor of server-side scripting—which guaranteed compatibility across browsers—and client-side development tools such as Macromedia’s Flash, which provided a clear path to rich applications even if it did require a browser plug-in to operate.
But in the past 18 months, JavaScript has seen a resurgence, driven by the likes of Google, Yahoo and even Microsoft. Just as important was the coining of a short, memorable and highly marketable term for the collection of technologies currently behind many of the most well-known applications. In a Feb. 18, 2005, blog entry by Jesse James Garrett, cofounder of user-experience consultancy AdaptivePath, asynchronous JavaScript and XML got a name: Ajax.