What is AJAX? and is it here to stay?

AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) enables you to refresh part of a web page without having to send the entire page back to the server. The AJAX-style of development is used in high-profile websites like Google, Flickr, and Amazon, and has rapidly gained popularity within the ASP.NET development community because of its ability to deliver rich, fast-loading, user-friendly applications that meet the demands of today's organizations.

Recognizing the importance of AJAX, Microsoft recently introduced the Atlas project, an extension to ASP.NET 2.0, designed to simplify the implementation of AJAX functionality. In addition, Microsoft has already launched web sites of their own that incorporate AJAX technologies and provide end users with an enhanced, responsive user interface.

aCCORDING TO Dundas Software.

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sO THE QUESTION ARISES IS IT HERE TO STAY???

Web development in general recently emerged from a long period of stagnation. While the web browser has become a de facto operating system for the enterprise application, there used to be only two realistic options for developing them:
Build simple web apps that work in any web browser on any operating system.
Take advantage of browser-specific "bells and whistles" to make more advanced web applications. These applications would generally be limited to a single browser on a single operating system or require a special plugin like Flash or Java.

There was no way to create intelligent, interactive web applications without programming for a very specific environment, which led to very poor quality internet applications, or to vendor lock-in. Consequently, many organizations have been reluctant to commit resources towards applications that would only work in very specific, controlled environments, and for good reason.

All of this is changing. Web browsers have reached a critical common threshold that allows powerful web applications to be written in much the same way across platforms, using mature techniques, and without any proprietary plugins. The building blocks of these applications are (X) HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and XML. These work in conjunction with a component that allows the browser to communicate with the server programmatically (XMLHttpRequest), and we have what is now being referred to as AJAX, or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML.

Well this is the answere O' Reilly has for it
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