Swedish start-up introduces virtual desktop

Swedish start-up Xcerion has launched a beta of its virtual desktop environment iCloud. The company hopes to eventually transform the web service into a marketplace for paid and free web applications.

iCloud upon registration, provides the user with a gui similar to that of virtually any modern operating system. The virtual desktop features draggable icons and some gadgets, there is a start menu with neatly arranged applications and in the tray bar is a task management window. The iCloud desktop runs in a virtual machine that claims 2MB of memory space in the browser. The virtualized applications are written in Ajax.

According to iCloud, the virtualization layer allows iCloud applications to run separately from the browser; this could raise performance to a workable level. However, a disadvantage of this setup is that the developers have to modify the code of the virtual machine for each browser and platform. Currently the gui environment only runs entirely on Internet Explorer; Although there is a version for Firefox, it currently has less functionality. However, the built-in Ajax applications do not need to be rewritten. Furthermore, the developers allow ZDnet know that they also want to port the desktop environment to mobile phones in the long run.

An iCloud user gets 3GB of online storage at his disposal, where it is possible to store the data via the webdavprotocol to be read remotely. Ultimately, Xcerion wants to grow its virtual desktop into a marketplace where developers can offer web applications, either on a payment basis or in the form of adware. In addition, the Swedish company wants to have a quarter of the revenue collected.