Don't worry  I didn't switch to blogging on Greek mythology (well, not yet anyway) this is still a  technology blog.

Ajax is an old/new web development paradigm. It is basically a combination of several existing client-side technologies to achieve responsive and "rich" web applications (a good example for that is Google maps - just pan the map and you'd see what I mean). specifically Ajax builds on XHTML, cascading style sheets (CSS),Javascript, DHTML and XMLHttpRequest (for asynchronous communication with the server). By the way the reason it was dubbed AJAX is that it is an acronym for Asynchronous Javascript and XML.

Microsoft has downplayed Ajax importance for quite sometime - claiming that basically the technologies has been available for years in Internet Explorer. Nevertheless Microsoft has recently decided to join the fray and provide structured tools to help realize Ajax development on the .NET platform  - The code name for this initiative is Atlas. Scott Guthrie from Microsoft published some of the details in his blog

Here are a few highlights of what Atlas will include:

• Client Side Framework - an extension for Javascript with UI controls, network stack, eventing etc.
• Server Controls - server side-controls that interact with the client side controls (based on async callbacks)
• Web-service integration
• Few Server-side and Client side Services - e.g. Profiles, Personalization, Authentication and Roles on the server and local browser cache on the client

It seems Microsoft will release a technology preview of Atlas at the PDC later this year.

Meanwhile, if you don't want to wait for Atlas - you can download Ajax.net  - Ajax.Net will generate client-side scripts that interact with server-side methods decorated with [Ajax.AjaxMethod] attribute - it isn't everything, but it is a very nice start (and it is available today)