Cloud Operating System For Netbooks Is Announced

Following on the heels of Microsoft's announcement just over a month ago of its Cloud OS, a smaller company, Good OS, says it is wheeling out its own Cloud operating system for 2009.Good OS's Cloud boots into a browser with Google, Yahoo, and Live in Seconds and, optionally, boots in Windows. It integrates a Web browser with a compressed Linux operating system kernel for immediate access to the Internet, integration of browser and rich client applications, and control of the computer from inside the browser. Users can turn on their computers, boot into Cloud for Internet and basic applications, and then boot into Windows for more powerful applications.

"With Cloud, Gigabyte Netbooks will power on to the Internet in seconds, while still supporting killer applications together with Windows XP," said a Good OS spokesperson in a statement. Gigabyte Touch-Screen Netbooks will come preloaded with Cloud and Windows XP early next year, according to Good OS.

If it all works as the company says it should, I think the highlights of Cloud are the ability to toggle between Windows and a Linux OS on the same computer as well as the fact that Cloud features a browser with an icon deck for shortcuts to your favorite apps.

Previously, Good OS was best known for its gOS Linux that came with computers sold at Wal-Mart stores for $199.

Good OS previewed Cloud at the Netbook World Summit in Paris on Monday. More information about Cloud and Gigabyte Touch-Screen Netbooks is scheduled to be announced at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next month.

In October, Microsoft announced Azure, a platform that allows developers to create cloud-computing architectures run from Microsoft servers. At the time, Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect, said that while cost-savings is one advantage of cloud computing, another is that it eliminates the need to have employees dealing with high-scale IT issues.

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