I just returned from the Miami Code Camp (it was actually in Miramar, but close enough), and came away impressed with some of the new things Microsoft is doing:
First of all, WWF (Windows Workflow Foundation is going to be big. I'm rarely wrong on these things (not that this does me much good!) The ability to create activities, to combine activities into workflows, and then to potentially sell these workflows, is something that I believe is going to be a big market in the coming years.
Especially since Microsoft also makes it very easy to wrap these workflows in web services. My only large complaint, and it's a big one, is that the only Role capability built into WWF are AD (Active Directory) Roles. One of the great things about Microsoft's AJAX.ASP.NET controls and .NET Framework 2 and 3.0 is the ability to create Roles using AD or the traditional Web-based Roles (similar to how DotNetNuke and many other Portal and Community platforms use Roles).
If you download the Master Pages tutorial for ASP.NET from asp.net, you'll see how easy it is to incorporate web or AD based roles into your site. The WWF team decided to only implement AD roles, which is going to be a huge issue, IMO, until they conform to use all of .NET 2.0 and 3.0 capabilities.
But I still can see a big market for selling activities and workflows. At Fingerfuel, we also think that offering web services and web parts to people is important. What WWF offers is another platform with which to offer those 'parts'.
And for anyone wondering if they should make the jump to AJAX, the time is now. The Microsoft AJAX class was beyond packed. It was SRO (both standing and sitting on the floor). And for anyone who hears someone in senior-management say "It's too new. And it won't work in too many browsers". Well, that's just wrong.
AJAX has been around at least since IE 5.0 (and I believe it was actually IE 4.0), which was released when, 1999? 2000)? If someone has a browser that is over eight years old, they need to be asked to upgrade, which is an easy enough process in today's world. The browser compatibility issue is with CSS, and not with AJAX.
As long as you design your site correctly by using different CSS files for different browsers, and ensure you place no stylesheet information in aspx or ascx files, and you'll be fine. AJAX will work fine, and the pages you push out to the different browsers will also be fine. So don't let anyone get away with stating the above as fact. It's not fact, it's fiction.
Now, this doesn't mean you should AJAX the site to death. Most of the things you do with AJAX will greatly lower the bandwidth necessary for each user session. Especially if you pay attention using the cache available in .NET. But there are certain controls you should be careful with--like the 'Type Ahead' control. If the control is designed well, with caching, you should be fine, and the bandwidth will still be much less than if deliverying a full page (no matter how well cached your browser handles pages!).
However, if not designed correctly, AJAX controls like Type Ahead and a few others which would make continual hits on the server to run lots of sql queries, could lead to bandwidth issues. It all comes down to good design, which is mostly common sense.