ASP.NET AJAX 1.0 (formerly code-named “Atlas”) Released

Earlier this morning, this new framework for creating more sophisticated user experiences on the Web was released as a free download. We also rolled out major updates to the https://ajax.asp.net/ community site to coincide with this release.

It was under a year ago that we publicly committed to shipping a fully-supported AJAX framework prior to “Orcas” that integrates seamlessly with Visual Studio 2005 and ASP.NET 2.0. We also committed to supporting the ASP.NET AJAX Control Toolkit, a shared-source development project consisting of both Microsoft and non-Microsoft developers. Today we have delivered on both commitments.

The customer & partner excitement has grown with each public release. There have been over 180K ASP.NET AJAX downloads since the Beta 2 release in early November, the number of early adopters featured in the Showcase has tripled and the Control Toolkit boasts more than 30 free ASP.NET AJAX controls.

In the coming weeks, we will be releasing the source code packages for the various ASP.NET AJAX components to assist developers with application debugging and interoperability.