An Internet operating system, or Internet OS, is any type of
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
designed to run all of its applications and services through an
Internet
The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
client, generally a
web browser
A web browser is application software 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 screen. Browsers are used on ...
. The advantages of such an OS would be that it would run on a ''
thin client
In computer networking, a thin client is a simple (low-performance) computer that has been optimized for establishing a remote connection with a server-based computing environment. They are sometimes known as ''network computers'', or in th ...
'', allowing cheaper, more easily manageable computer systems; it would require all applications to be designed on
cross-platform
In 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 platforms. Some cross-platform software r ...
,
open standards
An open standard is a standard that is openly accessible and usable by anyone. It is also a prerequisite to use open license, non-discrimination and extensibility. Typically, anybody can participate in the development. There is no single definition ...
; 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 software licensing and delivery model in which software is licensed on a subscription basis and is centrally hosted. SaaS is also known as "on-demand software" and Web-based/Web-hosted software.
SaaS is con ...
.
History
Talk of an Internet OS began to surface in 1995 as the
browser war
Browse, browser or browsing may refer to:
Programs
*Web browser, a program used to access the World Wide Web
*Code browser, a program for navigating source code
*File browser or file manager, a program used to manage files and related objects
* H ...
started heating up between
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...
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 onc ...
.
In response to the limited capabilities of
HTML
The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...
at the time, Microsoft began developing an online content authoring platform that would be based on distributed
OLE (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 graphica ...
. Immediately, there were concerns that this would tie the web to