Nexaweb officials said the company's Asynchronous JavaScript and XML-based offering for developing and deploying RIAs (rich Internet applications) will address key issues and limitations associated with current AJAX development. The AJAX client will be available to developers some time in second quarter of 2006, with additional versions available by the end of the year, the company said.

Nexaweb's expanded RIA platform will enable enterprises to generate Internet (HTML) applications using AJAX (DHTML/JavaScript) technology. Burlington, Mass.-based Nexaweb announced the new AJAX client on April 11.

Java gurus agree that AJAX is the next big thing for building Web applications. Click here to read more.

Nexaweb's AJAX-based offering for developing and deploying RIAs will eliminate the dependency on scripting and manual coding; address the lack of visual drag-and-drop development environment; address the lack of rich user interface or incremental update capability; eliminate the excessive use of JavaScript that breaks the well-established "markup + logic" design pattern that separates user interface from application logic; and break down code maintenance and team development challenges associated with JavaScript.

At TheServerSide Java Symposium last month in Las Vegas, Coach Wei, Nexaweb's chairman, founder and chief technology officer, spoke on the comparative strengths and weaknesses of using Java, .Net, AJAX or Adobe's Flash for building RIAs. He said that while object-oriented programming-based technologies like Java and .Net are good for supporting team development, they have limitations in that they require a specific virtual machine and highly skilled developers. And while Flash and AJAX are good for the Web tier, they are not designed for team development and are tied to scripting languages.

"What this means to the enterprise is that RIA is not about any single technology," Wei said. "The truth of the matter is to let them co-exist. You really need to have all four of these."

To enable the use of all four technologies, enterprises need what Wei called an Enterprise RIA Reference Architecture, which is what Nexaweb is shooting for.

"With this kind of reference architecture in place, you can write your next-generation app without having to worry about Java or AJAX or which one to use when," Wei said.

Meanwhile, "By incorporating AJAX capabilities into its powerful RIA platform, Nexaweb continues to demonstrate its commitment to open standards-based RIA development," said Jason Bloomberg, senior analyst at ZapThink, in a statement. "Nexaweb's expanded platform gives developers the freedom to select and use different technologies, easing system integration, application maintenance and asset protection."

Guru Jakob Nielsen offers advice on designing applications for usability. Click here to watch the video.

John Justin, director of development at ARTstor, said in a statement, "The Nexaweb Platform powers ARTstor's feature-rich, image-based Digital Library application. We benefit from ease of development and deployment, without compromising functionality or requiring client configuration or installation. The addition of AJAX to the Nexaweb Platform represents the next generation of Nexaweb's flexible development capabilities."

Added Wei, also in a statement, "Today's enterprises seek greater development flexibility—precisely the reason we're extending the Nexaweb Platform with AJAX capabilities. With AJAX development on the rise, particularly for HTML and consumer-facing applications, our support of AJAX enables developers to create high-performance RIAs using the technology of their choice, and ensures ease of development and ease of maintenance."

This article was originally published on eWEEK.com.