AJAX and Flex are the Choice for Open Source
The Rich Internet Application (RIA) analysis shows a strong preference for AJAX at 58%.
AJAX frameworks have for a long time been strong in the open source community. However, the analysis segmented the Windows-only users and found 92% do not use or intend to use Silverlight, 52% want AJAX and 24% Flex.
Windows operating system respondents are turning away from .NET/Web Parts and Silverlight, instead looking for an open stack based on Java with either an AJAX or Flex based client
Tags: AJAX, flex, silverlight
November 12th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Bet Flex would beat out Ajax if Ajax was broken down to the separate Ajax frameworks (yui, extjs, dojo, etc.)
Also what would the numbers be if BI was asked as two separate “reporting” and olap/analytics questions ?
November 12th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Good point Steve. If readers want to see more of flex goto
http://forge.alfresco.com/projects/flexspaces
Bi is interesting as well as very often you are analyzing workflows and access so integration is key and it is often reporting.
November 12th, 2008 at 7:17 pm
Probably want to be clear that these findings are based on a sampling of current Alfresco Users. I had to bounce back a few posts to figure this out. I suspect the Silverlight numbers given here are fairly skewed based on the sample set alone as it only includes those who would be open to downloading and using open-source to begin with.
From what I have seen of the technology and Microsoft’s major push for this, I expect Silverlight to be major competitor to Flex and Ajax. The division between the Flex and Ajax may serve to further strengthen Silverlight’s position as we (open-source community) divide our limited resources between the two instead of perfecting one.
November 13th, 2008 at 3:20 am
That is interesting that windows folks are looking to open source. Who would have guessed!
December 5th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Hi Jeff,
Good point. The white paper points out:
“Alfresco provides valuable content on the Web free to the Alfresco community, including documentation, frequently asked questions and answers, sample applications, a developer toolbox, recorded webinars, training and white papers. When users join the community they are asked to complete a questionnaire on their preferred software stack. This information helps Alfresco to prioritize platform and stack combinations for the benefit of the larger community.”
In reality, due to the open source model most people evaluate Alfresco independently on their stack of choice, not ours. When we talk to community members and customers one the the key things is they choose Alfresco because we can run on their stack not the one we tell them to use. Therefore the study gives an insight to a group users who are (a) looking for ECM (b) open to open source and (c) the typical stack users have and want to use for ECM. Alfresco is also typically used by large enterprises