In my opinion it is. Take a look at GAIA Ajax Widgets!! This is a completely different approach of Ajax then the MS way but it really has advantages over the MS way. And it renders fine in all major browsers IE, Firefox and Safari and you can even use it in combination wit the Mono platform.
Large calls over the wire are gone.. It all works based on java scripts so updates of controls are not done by sending the HTML but by sending a java script call. And all in the way you are used to code, so no hurdles are need to be taken.
Ever had the problem that you had several parts of the screen needed to be updated and had the controls triggering this event outside of the update panels? Well, with the gaia placeholder you can ForceAnUpdate and have the areas rendered the way you need it.
Having build a lot of CRM and other Database management oriented applications in ASP.NET I have more fun with Gaia then with the MS Ajax so far..
So this is my winner for 2007 in the development web applications with a bite and a good user expericence!
Check it out! I never ever used commercial Ajax components but for this one I will start using it (I will buy a commercial license in the near future as I cannot always comply on the GPL license). Yes, they do offer a GPL version of their software so you have all the sources you will ever need.
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With kind regards,
Michael Hensen
Amsterdam, the Netherlands