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What microsoft has always done really well is create technology. They created innerHTML and DIV/SPAN update methods in 1997 inside activeX controls. The problem is, they never wanted to work with anyone else. So they created amazing technology 10 years ago but did not want to play with anyone else. The other browsers began looking at DIV/SPAN updates and began implementing what Microsoft had done because it was so efficient for the end user.

In 2005 Jesse James Garret began looking at the work google was doing with google maps and came up with a very slick name. We had all been using this technology for quite a while now, with iFrames and asynchronous updating of data.

But here is where marketing is important. Suddenly by naming it something easy to remember and making it understandable hundreds of thousands of people put it together that this is actually what they are doing.

Yes, microsoft came out with it first. The first AJAX application was outlook. But the lack of interest from Microsoft to want to work together with anyone else kept development of AJAX techniques limited to one browser. It was once Jesse James Garrett saw what people were doing with it and gave this technique a sexy name that people began to see that all these techniques are similar, and used a lot over and over. Jesse James Garrett works for Adaptive Path, the company which is given credit for the name.

I think a lot of things in history work like this, many people independently use the same tools without calling it by a name. Then one bright person sees the technique, names it, and shows its usage. Then it finally becomes part of popular culture.