Is AJAX fit to serve as spear carrier for next-generation Web technology? That question, asked by the San Diego Business Journal in March 2007, was answered by the sheer scale of the last two AJAXWorld Conference & Expos, in March (New York) and September (Santa Clara). The undisputed answer is 'Yes!' So many companies have jumped aboard the AJAX train that when we wanted to do an informal survey the other day on upcoming Web and Internet technology trends, I was able to quickly compile a list of 800 different companies that are leaving the station.

Pablo Picasso was on to something when he declared that computers are useless 'because they can only give you answers.' Conferences, on the other hand, can also give you questions.

Early in 2006, before the general Internet-using public was aware of what I began referring to ­in editorials, blog entries, and SYS-CON's Internet TV Webcasts ­as 'The AJAX Moment,' there was a strong sense among industry insiders that AJAX-like approaches, if not actually AJAX itself, were a shoo-in as the new paradigm for the development of Web 2.0 and the fulfillment of the software development community's long-held dream of complete freedom from operating system or runtime environment ­dependent technologies.