Jolicloud, A Fantastic OS For Your Netbook

During the early 2000′s, netbooks originally emerged as low cost laptops with a heavy emphasis on web browsing and wireless internet – it was initially aimed at needy children in developing countries. It came bundled with an adequate enough OS to run the most basic of software (email, word processor, the odd mp3 player, etc) the focus was to keep the computer connected to the Internet so that the information the child received was always up to date.

However, word spread of the low cost laptop (netbooks usually range as low as $100 – $400). This option made especially perfect sense for traveling business people, however, the pre-installed OS (commonly Windows XP home edition) was sub par and forced the user to use either processor intensive, bulky, and outdated software which could reduce precious battery time, or search for time consuming workarounds to meet their needs.

That is what JoliCloud is trying to change. Designed for netbooks and using the best of what Open source software and open web technologies have to offer – JoliCloud is an Internet Operating System aimed at being a clutter-free, simple, yet slick solution to the current netbook operating systems out there. Using parts of the Ubuntu and Debian Operating systems (which are both Linux based) JoliCloud intends to blur the lines between web application and locally installed software. For example, Facebook, Twitter and Gmail (which are web applications) will look the same as Skype, VLCplayer, OpenOffice Writer (which are locally installed software applications).

With cloud computing becoming a reality with every forthcoming day – JoliCloud’s developer, Tarik Amin, foresees a future where applications designed for powerful processors will be a thing of the past. He sees everything being processed on web servers and all the user really needs is a basic computer with an internet connection of some sort (in netbooks case its 3G and wireless).

Already examples of this are evident, as GoogleDocs and Zoho are online office suites that don’t even use your hard disk to store data, it is stored on the service providers severs.

The world is slowly turning into a forever connected state. It’s not uncommon to hear about someone leaving their laptop switched on overnight to download the latest 100 MB office presentation to view it the next morning. Sure it doesn’t happen everyday – but it is happening…and JoliCloud intends to be the first OS to catch and surf this new wave.