Ray Ozzie “internet cloud”? Hmmm.

Interesting choice of name/jargon here, considering that Jim Allchin as a PhD canidate @ GaTech started the CLOUDS distributed operating system project way back in 1982.

Oh well, who says the technology business is fast paced?

Link: GigaOM � Xcerion makes Internet OS real. Whether or not you call it an OS is irrelevant. It is the next evolutionary step in the Web 2.0 universe. Call it synchronicity the web offline worlds collaborating in a seamless…

The offline feature proves that there is more going on in XIOS than just being a cool window manager for moving around web applications, mostly executing on the server side (using some server language). XIOS applications are built 100% in XML and are executed directly on the client without any server round trips.

XIOS does not contain a kernel or device drivers. Why reinvent the wheel? Today’s commodity operating systems handles this with brilliance, what Xcerion wanted to do was to improve the layers of an OS that sits on top of the lowest core. The part of an OS where the most end user value is achieved. We wanted zero-installation and choose to use a browser as the UI rendering engine, however our OS consists of many of the parts that make up a traditional desktop OS. Including process handling, file system and programming APIs.

Leveraging the network, XIOS uses XML and enables collaboration for all its applications. The OS also features XML Web Services support and a built in transaction manager for keeping all data synchronized in all scenarios. Since XIOS is built using AJAX technologies, current web applications may be run on XIOS (without offline support) and traditional server technologies like Java, PHP or .NET may be used to dynamically create XIOS XML applications (with offline support).

because OS is a concept the mass market understands.

If that assertion is true (never trust a marketer to tell you the truth), then I’d say it is more correct to call it a term the mass market misunderstands, thanks to marketing, and thanks to computers being too damn hard for people to use.

A reader emailed me earlier today, and has this to say about Xcerion and its peers.

I don’t think the intent is to replace an existing OS like Windows, Linux or OS X at the boot-level but rather to define an application platform in which data persistence and store are transparently managed between desktop and webtop instances.

to answer your questions, the company says that XIOS will be free, and will be seeded with some applications built by the company.

however they want individuals to build apps and they (Xcerion) will provide the infrastructure to sell and market those applications. they believe that XIOS’s ease of programming can create a new wave of shareware apps, and create opportunities for independent developers.

on the speed issue, i did get to use it over a wifi connection, and it worked just fine. their offline element is what makes it interesting, since you can work offline but sync with the backend servers when you connect to the internet.

Did you check out http://G.ho.st – the Global Hosted Operating SysTem. Unlike Xcerion it works with the best third party Web applications and unlike Xcerion you can try it our on the Web without meeting the CEO in Starbucks (although you would be welcome to do that too if you like)! Of course we wish Xcerion all the best too – what matters is that we free the users from the absurdity of having data and apps tied to one physical PC.

Zvi Schreiber
CEO, G.ho.st

They are shells. Application environments. Web desktops, at a stretch. But to call them an OS is just plain sloppy and inexact and the hallmark of fluffy, empty-headed marketing bimbo thought. Any of you buying into that should have your cellphones, laptops and any online account rhyming with “frittr” taken away until you apologize and can pass a quiz on the actual basic functions of an operating system.

Let that terminology catch on and you’re going to have a whole generation of tech support nightmares where the techie asks what OS the user is running, and the poor, clueless, marketing victim/user says “WebWidgetMonstr 3.14 Beta Venti Mocha Half Caff” and a long, unfunny round of “Who’s on first?” ensues.

Just knock it off.

Internet OS sector seems to be getting increasingly crowded. Start-ups such as YouOS, EyeOS are vying for mindshare with Internet giants like Google. The seriousness of market is reflected by the fact that earlier this month, Microsoft set up an all-st…