Another Belated Microsoft Memo 232
fiannaFailMan writes "Bill Gates has sent out another memo heralding the latest big development in the industry, as he sees it. This time it's web-based software using technology such as AJAX (that MS 'invented but failed to exploit'). The Economist says 'As in previous cases, what is new is not the idea itself, but the fact that Microsoft is taking it seriously.' Zach Nelson of NetSuite decided against writing a memo. 'Writing memos is cheap,' he says, whereas 'writing software is a whole lot harder.'"
Re:Who owns it? (Score:2, Informative)
Memos as Press Release (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Probably a prelude to changing the way it works (Score:3, Informative)
It's true that in the upcoming Internet Explorer 7, the method by which you instantiate the XMLHttpRequest object will change. But you have it completely backwards - they are changing it to be a native object, to be compatible with all the other browsers that implement it, instead of its original ActiveX implementation found in Internet Explorer 5.x and 6.0.
Re:AJAX good for large services , not small (Score:4, Informative)
1. Use an existing RPC library, like JSON-RPC for java, to translate your objects and methods. Don't re-invent the wheel.
2. Use an existing AJAX library to wrap the XMLHttpRequest object, like Sarissa.
3. Sprinkle wherever it fits.
It is quie simple actually. I was able to AJAX-ify a few pages of an exisiting app in under a day, giving them quite a more responsive feel.
It's called 'Atlas' (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Microsoft invented AJAX? (Score:5, Informative)
Do you know what "AJAX" is? It's a term coined by some overpaid design guru talking head to describe technology that has been around, and in heavy use by non-public webapps, for many years.
Microsoft pioneered this whole way of thinking, even if they didn't implement it very creatively on many of their sites, and many of their better ideas (CSS expressions & behaviors, XML data islands) have still not become standards, while others have.
And, yes, I am posting this from Firefox, running on an Ubuntu distro. I am not a Microsoft apologist, but mindlessly parrotting off commonly-believed falsehoods just pisses me off. When IE 5 was first released, it was a groundbreaking app, better than anything else on the market, and many of its innovative features are still unknown to most of the A-List, blogorati circle-jerk web-brochure designers who think making a glorified to-do list is "changing the face of the web".
Re:Who owns it? (Score:5, Informative)
However look here [gnome.org] and here [redhat.com].
You don't need to sue someone so stifle progress as evidenced by the fact their Mono patents are currently stifling progress by the risk of lawsuits where Microsoft could easily remove that threat.
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Informative)
They already have. [microsoft.com] It also plays video. [microsoft.com] And it was released over a year ago. [engadget.com]
Re:Who owns it? (Score:2, Informative)
When has Microsoft EVER leveraged a patent to stifle progress? Hell even their FAT and other crap they made is widely used for free, and they have sought NOTHING from it.
Myths are like Rancors, hard to kill, even though they don't exist.
Re:Microsoft invented AJAX? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Who owns it? (Score:5, Informative)
I tired of fud... and this is a big one. (Score:3, Informative)
Ajax = Asynchronous Javascript and XML.
XML is a subset of SGML which existed before M$.
Javascript is a child of LiveScript, both were created by Netscape. Nothing in what is Ajax was ever created by M$ period. The fact that they are able to see the value and talk it up is cool, but they invented none of it.
Now I'm sure someone will bring up M$ Remote Scripting. It like LiveScript where basically in house products. Remote Script did not exist in the public realm. However at the time of it's "creation", M$ was lacking a viable browswer (Definition of Viable is it works.) IE 1.0 and 2.0 where total jokes, 3.0 was the equal of Netscape 1.0 and 4.0 began to work. By this time however both MS and Netscape were fully supporting LiveScript/JavaScript (Sometimes in name only, as each tried to extend beyond the other.)
But in short Please, stop say M$ invented Ajax. This is like claiming that Honda invented the Car. They build them yes but they did not invent them.
Now according to wikipedia something called. Remote Scripting supposedly pre-dated HTTP requests. (according to Wikipedia.) Nope.. sorry didn't. The concept of HTTP requests etc had been layed out for a long time before M$ existed (pre-dating the Altair) But it took Berners-Lee to be able to make it usable and, Stanford Linear Accelorator to do the most important step. Create a Distant End. In fact at the time the ONLY usable OS for this was
Since Remote Scripting required a Java applet to work
So no, I had more to do with Ajax than M$ did. And I had nothing at all to do with the concept.
Re:Who owns it? (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft sued lindows for trademark infringement. They also sued a 16 year old boy who had the temerity to register a domain name with his name in it.
Microsoft has repeatedly said they intend to agressively defend their intellectual property.
What makes you think MS will never sue anybody for patent infringement after their top level executives have said they fully intend to?
Re:In other news... (Score:2, Informative)
Once again another case of back to the future. Unfortunately I'm sure they will be like all the other SharePoint features - worst of breed in everything that they do. (If you don't believe me just go and have a look at the 'discussion boards' features of SharePoint)
Andrew Tanenbaum is uninformed. (Score:2, Informative)