Ajax may alter channel business model 21 February, 2006 By Paul Weinberg

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On the plus side are new web applications that will usher in a more enriched user interface and dynamic content -- courtesy of Ajax, a repertoire of Java Script and XML tools.

Ajax based development kits are being made available to developers by all of the major IT vendors, including Microsoft, IBM and Sun.

On the other hand, more exciting web content and design will also encourage and expand the availability on the Internet of on demand software providers such as SalesForces.com that deal directly with end users and bypass the channel entirely.

VARs, systems integrators and resellers will have to "evolve" following the loss of revenue from the software component of a solution/professional service sale, Senf explained.

At the same time the advent of web 2.0, of which Ajax is just one aspect, is, not about to sweep the IT industry overnight, he continued. "Web 2.0 is no big bang; it will take time to happen."

"Ajax is getting a lot of interest because it is a quick, easy and simple way to extend the basic web metaphor, the basic browser metaphor in new ways."

The word "mashups" comes up a lot in the world of Ajax development. Originally associated back in the early 1990s with disc jockeys mixing up multiple pieces of music together it is now being used to describe the process in software of combining many sources of information to create an application, explains Senf.

"Just as you take a piece of music and add to it, change it, extend it, in the same way that an application on the web can be done. At the end of the day, you start to take the chaos on the web and distill it down for the end user in a more simple and usable way."

Under Ajax the developer can work on the same web page without having to go back and forth to the server to obtain access, for instance, to specific data inside a spreadsheet rather than the entire application. This represents a time-saving in the development process, he explained.

Senf and others point to the success of Goggle and some of its features -- Maps and Gmail, for instance -- and how this is forcing Microsoft to hedge its bets by making its applications available through such web services as Microsoft Office Live

It is not clear yet whether Microsoft intends to use advertising or subscriptions to finance this type of business model, added Senf.

In the meantime, the Santa Clara based Jamcracker Inc. is offering a way out of the loss of software revenue for the channel with the advent of on demand services.

With its own Pivot Path application the company acts as an intermediary between resellers and more than 40 on demand software services and ISVs that have chosen to participate in the Jamcracker program..

"We will not allow the channel to be disintermediated," stated Brent Arslaner, vice president of marketing for Jamcracker. "All of these are technologies that

will also make it easier for solution providers to deliver horizontal and vertical solutions."