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 »
