Wow, it’s been a long road getting to this release date, but I am very excited and proud of our team, and I'm happy to say that today we released our beta 1 of Jaxer -- what we believe to be the first true Ajax Server product.

So what is an “Ajax Server”? Simply put, we unify the development model for Ajax developers. That is, write “Ajax” code client AND server. The same APIs, the same JavaScript, the same HTML and best of all, manipulate the DOM on the server.

What does all that mean? It means that you can do a getElementById() and set its innerHTML on the server side just as easily as you can on the browser. You can write a single JavaScript function and share it between browser and server. You can write server functions which can be transparently called from the browser -- synchronous or asynchronously.

If you’re a beginning Ajax developer and any of that sounds complicated, it’s not. It simply means you can now build an entire Web 2.0 application, client and server, using only the Ajax technologies you love.

I asked several of the leaders in the Ajax space to join with us and with you, the Ajax community, in defining where we go from here. I’m very honored to say that we’ve got an all-star group assembled as our Aptana Advisory Board, just take a look at this who’s who list.

We’ve placed a few screencasts online so you can take a quick look at what Jaxer is all about and how you can start playing with it right away.

Send us your feedback, your suggestions, and tell us what you are building. After all, building a free, open-source product ultimately means we’re building this for you!

Regards,
Paul Colton