Ajax (sometimes called Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) is a way of programming for the Web that gets rid of the hourglass. Data, content, and design are merged together into a seamless whole. When your customer clicks on something on an Ajax driven application, there is very little lag time. The page simply displays what they’re asking for.

Ajax is a way of developing Web applications that combines:

• XHTML and CSS standards based presentation
• Interaction with the page through the DOM
• Data interchange with XML and XSLT
• Asynchronous data retrieval with XMLHttpRequest
• JavaScript to tie it all together