I'm happy to see that Ajax.NET Professional is used about 13.3% when using .NET related web applications [1]. Starting with my first post Using a HttpHandler and Attributes to call C# methods in JavaScript [2] in February 2005 the AJAX hype started around the world. Two months later I renamed the project to Ajax.NET [3] and added nearly all features that are the most used until today. In May 2005 Windows Mobile support [4] has been added and Ajax.NET was the only .NET framework that was able to run AJAX requests on mobile devices. In the end of 2005 I was invited to the PDC 05 in Los Angeles where I could meet Brian Goldfarb [5] and Jonathan Hawkins [6] to see how Microsoft is working on AJAX in ASP.NET (Atlas) [7]. I meet some other .NET developers and had great ideas on how AJAX will change web applications. In October I published a new product called Ajax.NET Professional [8] which was doing the same but contains several other security features. Because of a change in the JavaScript source I changed the name from Ajax.NET.
In the first week of 2006 I received a congratulation mail from Microsoft telling me that I received the MVP award for ASP/ASP.NET [9], wow. During 2006 many AJAX frameworks or AJAX related controls came up and ASP.NET AJAX has been released and is now part of Visual Studio .NET 2008 and the .NET framework 3.5.
Because Ajax.NET Professional fits all my needs (and the needs of many other companies) I didn't add more features like UpdatePanel or controls. Nearly 90% of my source code I'm writing is JavaScript the reason why I was not interested in WebControls. 2007 I got again the MVP award for my work on AJAX [10] and other web related stuff.
Today I have my eyes on new technologies that will change client application development (web applications). To see any feedback of my MVP award for 2008 [11] I'd like to concentrate more on those topics. I'm still using AJAX in nearly all my web applications, but the future will bring more important features.
Future of Ajax.NET Professional
Well, I think you know what will come now. Yes, I will stop working on my baby AjaxPro. I feel sorry about that and will say Thank you! to all of you that have made Ajax.NET Professional a great framework. Without your help the private project never get such a big success until today!!
As ASP.NET AJAX includes PageMethods [12] (which are very similar to the AjaxMethod attribut in Ajax.NET) I recommend to switch to ASP.NET AJAX for newer projects. ASP.NET AJAX is included in the next Visual Studio .NET 2008 and .NET framework 3.5. New technologies like Silverlight [13] and the MVC framework [14] will support or can be combined with ASP.NET AJAX.
The Google group for Ajax.NET [15] and the Codeplex project [16] will be still open. If you have any question how to move from AjaxPro to ASP.NET AJAX you should start in the Microsoft forum [17].