Web operating systems

Web-based operating systems have a long and rich history, but only now are we starting to see some emerging projects that could be commercially viable.

By Danny Bradbury, 8 Oct 2007 at 16:02

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Thanks to companies like Google, we are already starting to see applications delivered online. The company has just added a presentation application to its Google Docs suite, for example. But why stop at online applications?

If you can use word processors and spreadsheets over the internet, then why not transfer the whole desktop to the web? Web-based operating systems have a long and rich history, but only now are we starting to see some emerging projects that could be commercially viable.

Researchers at UC Berkeley were among the first to explore the possibilities of a web-based operating system (OS), with the Web OS project, started in the mid-90s. The project, part of a wider initiative called Berkeley Network of Workstations (NOW), was designed to create a set of system resources that could be used in a geographically distributed way. At the turn of the decade, the frenzy around online application service provision reached its height. Services such as desktop.com and MyWebOS were offering online desktops (aka web tops) to consumers. But the world wasn't ready, and the dot-com crash dispatched such ideas.

Now, with Web 2.0 players preaching a more grown-up, sustainable platform for commercial ventures, several players are hoping that web tops will become viable. Most of them are offering proprietary systems that bear only a passing resemblance to Windows (in the sense that they have a windowing GUI). However, Sachin Duggal is hoping to buck the trend. Duggal is chief executive of Nivio, a start-up offering web-based Windows desktops to users.

Duggal identifies a number of threats facing traditional computer users: data loss, privacy and Internet security threats, incompatibility, system availability, and outdated hardware and software. "Some software vendors are using the application to solve some of these problems," he says, highlighting Google Docs as an example. "But we think that's a myopic view of solving the problem. The way you really solve the problem is to go back to the platform, and change it from local to centralised."

Data you just can't ditch

The advantages to a Web top according to Duggal are that you can't lose the data even if you tried (unlike, say, carrying it around on a laptop or USB key), and that software applications of your choosing also become more easily available. He is working with software vendors including Adobe to produce online versions of applications that can be rented by users who may only need them for a short period of time.

"If you were a small business or an individual, then why would you buy certain software applications when you can rent them for a month?" He asks, adding that much software piracy is driven by inflexibility in licensing terms. Initial applications available by default on the site include OpenOffice, but the firm is also working with software vendors including Adobe to make commercial applications available on the site.

Nivio operates in a centralised environment, unlike many worktops that offload processing onto the client, Duggal asserts. "In some cases a web OS is an application which is running in a web browser. In some cases it's a remote Linux desktop. But in most cases, it's usually just an Ajax or a Flash-based desktop where the computing is happening locally," says Duggal. "The only things I consider web OSs are those where computing is happening centrally."