An Internet operating system, or Internet OS, is any type of
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
designed to run all of its applications and services through an
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
client, generally a
web browser
A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scr ...
. The advantages of such an OS would be that it would run on a ''
thin client
In computer networking, a thin client, sometimes called slim client or lean client, is a simple (low-Computer performance, performance) computer that has been Program optimization, optimized for Remote desktop, establishing a remote connectio ...
'', allowing cheaper, more easily manageable computer systems; it would require all applications to be designed on
cross-platform
Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several Computing platform, computing platforms. Some ...
,
open standards
An open standard is a standard that is openly accessible and usable by anyone. It is also a common prerequisite that open standards use an open license that provides for extensibility. Typically, anybody can participate in their development due to ...
; and would not tie a user's applications, documents, and preferences to a single computer, but rather place them in the
Internet cloud. The Internet OS has also been promoted as the perfect type of platform for
software as a service
Software as a service (SaaS ) is a cloud computing service model where the provider offers use of application software to a client and manages all needed physical and software resources. SaaS is usually accessed via a web application. Unlike o ...
.
History
Talk of an Internet OS began to surface in 1995 as the
browser war
Browse, browser, or browsing may refer to:
Computing
*Browser service, a feature of Microsoft Windows to browse shared network resources
* Code browser, a program for navigating source code
* File browser or file manager, a program used to manage ...
started heating up between
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...
and
Netscape
Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California, and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was o ...
.
In response to the limited capabilities of
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It defines the content and structure of web content. It is often assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets ( ...
at the time, Microsoft began developing an online content authoring platform that would be based on distributed
OLE
OLE, Ole or Olé may refer to:
* Olé, a cheering expression used in Spain
* Ole (name), a male given name, includes a list of people named Ole
* Overhead lines equipment, used to transmit electrical energy to trams, trolleybuses or trains
Co ...
(Object Linking and Embedding) which it codenamed
Blackbird. Using OLE, applications put on the web would contain their own processing logic, so would act similar to applications in a typical
desktop environment
In computing, a desktop environment (DE) is an implementation of the desktop metaphor made of a bundle of programs running on top of a computer operating system that share a common graphical user interface (GUI), sometimes described as a graphi ...
. Immediately, there were concerns that this would tie the web to