Microsoft just released Atlas ASP.NET AJAX Beta 1 and contrary to their "Go Live" CTP promise, changes to the bits shipped do break compatibility with previous versions. If I had to write an official telerik company statement, it would be something like this:
"Indeed, we have to confirm that the latest release of MS Ajax Beta 1 (v1.0.61025) breaks backward compatibility and does not work with our latest releases (Q3 and Q3 SP1). There are a lot of changes and some issues related to Ajax Beta 1 that we (and Microsoft) have to resolve.
We are in no way trying to pass responsibility to Microsoft, we just need time to research what has changed and to prepare a new release (SP2) as soon as possible."
However, since this is my somewhat unofficial blog, I have to say that the initial blogosphere feedback to this release has been negative, to say the least. Rick Strahl has some hardcore technical details for those interested and we have even more. I'm sure that one of these guys will add additional details later.
For those tired of these changes, I do suggest using our r.a.d.ajax offering which works without any issues with all telerik and stock ASP.NET controls and supports both ASP.NET 1.x and 2.x. r.a.d.ajax AjaxPanel is our mature and stable atlas:UpdatePanel alternative and we do offer r.a.d. AjaxManager which is a very powerful control ajax enabler and has no alternative in Microsoft's ?jax offering. Online r.a.d.ajax demos can be found here:
http://www.telerik.com/demos/aspnet/Ajax/Examples/Panel/FirstLook/DefaultCS.aspx
