Atlas == AJAX Framework for ASP.NET 2.0
Have you heard about the Atlas project at Microsoft? The ASP.NET team is working on a set of features on top of ASP.NET 2.0 to make "Asynchronous Javascript and XML" (AJAX) programming much easier. I am very excited about this!!! AJAX-style programming (ugh, I still don't like that name) is tough even though the end result is very compelling. Unfortunately the complexity of development often makes the cost of AJAX too prohibitive unless an app is mass audience and needs to have that extra responsiveness or coolness factor.
I have been a big fan of smart client technology ever since I wrote Tee Time for Golf.NET. Tee Time was a WinForms app that used Web services and provided offline support with local data caching. We didn't know to call it a "smart client" back then... I still think smart clients are fantastic and absolutely the way to go for many types of applications. But a lot of applications have to be Web-based to reach the broadest possible audience. For example, the reporting front-end for a project I have been working on for the past year has to be Web-based since a browser is the closest thing to a common platform across our user base.
If the AJAX tools, classes, etc. from the ASP.NET team can bring down the cost of rich and responsive Web UI development enough, it will become a standard practice for many companies. The current set of HTML + CSS + Javascript technologies that are widely supported is a mess and I would love to see some better standards but until the next major shift happens, a good AJAX toolset that hides much of the tedious client-side coding work might suffice.
I cannot wait to see this previewed at PDC 2005!