AJAX application in 2003-2004

As I am making a slide presentation of an application we made for Alcatel Space in 2003-2004, I realize we made an AJAX web application, before the term of "AJAX" was invented.

This is a prototype of a general public skinable web application that can run on either PC or PocketPC web browsers. It allows users to browse the web, listen to musics (AAD and MP3 formats) and radios (streaming), watch films (mp2 and mp4 formats) and receive personnal messages.

The server-side of the application runs on an Alcatel equipment that receives satellite broadcasting data, learns user habits (our application catch user commands), and determines a user profile in order to catch broadecasted data that fits user care. It proposes then thematic channels where all types of data can be merged : browsable web pages, audio and video subjects.

Technically, the web server generates one HTML page (according to user terminal type) that includes Javascript code allowing it to communicate with the server via XML messages. The web page refreshes only parts that need to be refreshed in the page, without reloading the whole page.

A limitation to this prototype was it uses only IE ActiveX functions and Windows Media and Flash plugins. Today, such a prototype would use any AJAX compliant browser. As Opera just released a new version of its browser for mobile that is AJAX compatible, why not make it run on mobiles ?