When companies began working with the technology several years ago,before the approach even had the nameAjax, they used it for smaller, lessimportant applications. However, asthe component technologies haveimproved, Google and a number ofother companies have started usingAjax for more important enterpriseapplications. In addition to its map site, Google has worked with Ajax to build appli-cations such as Gmail and GoogleGroups, a community and discussionservice, said Bret Taylor, Google Mapsproduct manager.