VentureBeat

Xcerion is one of those strategically important start-ups whose vision could make a big difference in the operating system wars of the future.

The Swedish company is developing a “cloud OS,” or one that does its computing not in the desktop but in the Internet-connected cloud. Today, the company is releasing an authoring tool that makes it easy to create applications for its operating system, dubbed icloud.

The significance is clear, as I wrote in a story for the San Jose Mercury News. Microsoft has dominated computing for decades with its desktop-focused OSes. Google wants to supplant Microsoft by embedding more applications such as Google Docs in the cloud. But it doesn’t have a true cloud OS, which makes it reliant on the hybrid model of “Google in the cloud, Microsoft in the desktop.” Xcerion has just the kind of cloud OS that Google needs to go to war with Microsoft.

Those two titans aren’t the only ones who have a stake in the “cloud versus client” OS battle. Google and IBM are collaborating on cloud computing research. Other cloud OSes include YouOS and Laszlo Webtop. Xcerion released its first beta version last September.

The company says in a release today that the new tool, dubbed Visual Application Designer for icloud, makes it easy to create applications for its OS. Those applications include scaleable apps, widgets, or mashups — all created through a drag-and-drop interface.

The beta version of the tool is available immediately. By making it available for free, the company hopes that third parties will begin to create applications such as the Office-like email, calendar, word processing, presentation, and other productivity apps needed to get any new OS off the ground. Read the rest of this entry »

As operating systems based in the Internet “cloud” are set to shake up the OS market, Xcerion is pushing forward with its cloud-based system — which, as of today, has been officially dubbed icloud.

Incoming VentureBeat writer Dean Takahashi wrote about Xcerion, which went into a developer testing mode in September 2007, in the San Jose Mercury News earlier this month. Dean notes that the company’s technology is particularly relevant now, because as Google and Microsoft face off over the latter’s $44.6 billion Yahoo takeover bid, there are other battles on the horizon, including a big one on the OS front. Google is reportedly thinking about developing an operating system where computation is done not on your desktop but, via the web, on the company’s servers. While it’s hard to imagine anyone really threatening the dominance of Microsoft Windows, Google would probably have the best shot.

Meanwhile, Xcerion has some great ideas of its own, and if icloud doesn’t take off, it may be blazing the path that Google follows. There are probably plenty of users who’d like to install an OS that uses virtually no space on their hard drive, and which they can access remotely. While Ars Technica is skeptical, Dean seems reasonably impressed.

The company developed its technology for six years before unveiling it. Here’s how it works: You install icloud on a Windows, Mac or Linux machine. Once installed, it will create a desktop that sits within your existing OS, but is accessible from any Internet browser or web-enabled cell phone. The OS only occupies about 1.5 megabytes of your hard-disk space — everything is stored online, according to Dean.

The Scandinavia-based company says applications like instant messaging, money managing and a media player are already available, and icloud plans to add a new application every month. All the application source code is available to other developers, too.

The company has raised around $12 million.