While it is tough to know who should take credit for AJAX I do know who I attribute to using AJAX in ways that have now revolutionized the Art of the Start. Brendan King wrote a post describing how at VendAsta (a new saskatoon software company) we have used Google’s collaborative online tools to work more efficiently than ever before. Lately I find myself installing fewer and fewer applications on my bloated Vista OS and simply lighting up Firefox, then logging into online applications. VendAsta’s start-up costs have been greatly reduced through the use of these applications and I seem to find more and more brilliant ones each day to replace what I would have had to install on my computer. The advantages to having these applications, and their documents online, is obvious. With collaboration becoming less and less frustrating, team morale and efficiency have seemed to gone through the roof. Ryan, a software developer on the VendAsta team wrote a great post recently about automating work-flow, not just digitizing it. The web 2.0 applications I am seeing lately really seem to get this.

With lower costs for software, servers, storage, etc. we at VendAsta can focus on building a stronger team and attracting other smart people that share our love of the revolution that is happening today in the world of software. We can put that money that used to be spent on hard start-up costs towards salaries, benefits, and simply a really really cool environment. The world of Saskatoon software development is changing and it is very exciting to be apart of it as a start-up.