XIOS, the XML Operating System

Once you strip away the hyperbole -- the fear being struck into the corporate hearts of Microsoft, Google and Adobe -- this is an interesting article and a very interesting concept. I'm reminded a bit of the claims made for Java when it first gained attention ... ease of programming, safety because of the sandbox, portability. And yet, there might just be enough of a basis to this that it has a real impact.

Xcerion's Internet Cloud Forms Over Google and Microsoft - Technology News by InformationWeek

... For the past five years, Xcerion has been working on an XML-based Internet operating system (XIOS) that runs inside a Web browser. In a way, XIOS is an abstraction layer that sits atop a true operating system like Linux, Mac OS X, or Windows, just as does Transmedia's Flash-based Glide Next media sharing environment.

But XIOS aims to provide lower-level functionality. It's not simply an interface for media sharing. Rather, it's a complete XML-based operating system and development platform that replicates the desktop computing experience from inside the browser and adds the benefits of cloud-based computing, where applications and data are available over the network.

Watch it in action and you'll see a visual representation of the threat it poses to Windows: Double-click on the application and the familiar desktop interface appears inside the browser window. Expand the browser window in full-screen mode and the Windows desktop vanishes beneath it. Of course the XIOS environment could just as easily look like the Mac OS desktop or something else entirely. This is what Microsoft feared Netscape would do, turn its main asset, the operating system, into middleware.

There are several reasons why one might want to run an XML-based operating system in a Web browser: security, data portability, freedom from hardware and platform lock-in, cost, built-in collaboration, and development productivity.

While no computer system is completely secure, XIOS should be immune to most of the malware in circulation today because it runs in a sandbox, a virtual environment where code can be executed without risk to computing resources on the outside.

Because XIOS is based on XML, the operating system, the integrated development environment (IDE), the applications, and data files are extremely portable and compatible. Applications can be easily tied to back-end XML Web services created with .Net, Java, or other Web technology. With XIOS running in a Web browser, users can access their files from any computer with an Internet connection and compatible browser, regardless of platform. The Xcerion's operating system has to be downloaded, but it's a small file -- only 2 Mbytes. ...