By Shaun Walker - Founder of Dotnetnuke

With exciting new offerings on the immediate horizon like Silverlight ( aka. WPF/E ), it is sometimes easy to forget some of the recent software releases which are now in full scale production rollout. During the alpha and beta stages of new product releases there is intense marketing focus and active community participation by the early adopters group as the product evolves from one version to the next. However once a product reaches final release form, the spotlight often immediately shifts to the next innovative technology category. This shift often happens before the released product has "crossed the chasm", the stage where the early majority consumer group contemplates mainstream adoption within their enterprise. And it’s often not the strength of the product but the support of the community which dictates whether a product is going to achieve long term industry success.

The official release of ASP.NET AJAX in January 2007, marked the culmination of over a year and a half of intense product development efforts by the ASP.NET team. This out-of-band release was a real milestone for Microsoft as it proved that exceptional results could be achieved by actively engaging the community in between major platform releases. This agile model allowed Microsoft to keep up with market demand and satisfy the needs of consumers, without compromising quality or features. However, the true success of this effort is largely contingent upon how many developers and organizations worldwide choose to embrace ASP.NET AJAX within their production environments now that it has been officially released.