Ajax13, the makers of a web application suite that includes ajaxWrite, ajaxPresents, ajaxSketch, ajaxXLS, and ajaxTunes, today officially released their web operating system, ajaxWindows.
ajaxWindows is a full featured web OS deployed in a browser window using JavaScript. It has a familiar Windows like desktop feel, complete with a task bar, start menu, and desktop icons. It acts as a launcher for many popular web 2.0 sites and applications — and lets you add menu or desktop icons for each. It also supports a range of desktop widgets and all of Ajax13’s applications operate natively.
ajaxWindows can probably be looked at as a pretty launcher for its suite of apps, which ties their web office suite together (I say web office, because it includes mostly office-type apps, but they do offer a simple drawing program and a music player app — both of which technically fall outside the definition of web office).
Because the only apps that ajaxWindows supports natively are the ones from developer Ajax13 and the handful of in-house widgets, using ajaxWindows can feel a bit disjointed. Other apps launch in a new browser window outside the OS (though a link to the open browser window is included on the taskbar). Though ajaxWindows is encouraging developers to create widgets for the web OS, there doesn’t appear to be a full developer API that would allow app creators to make versions of their applications that could run natively on ajaxWindows (i.e., not in a separate browser window). For those reasons, it feels like ajaxWindows is really more of a sophisticated launcher for Ajax13’s other apps than anything else.
Ajax13 is hoping that their storage strategy is what sets their Web OS apart from the competition. ajaxWindows users receive online storage space for automatically backing up and syncing documents and photos from their PCs. “We are tremendously excited about the breakthroughs we have been able to build into ajaxWindows that go well beyond the valuable back-up storage service,” said Ajax13 CEO Michael Robertson in a press release.
Robertson is a serial entrepreneur, who was once the founder of MP3.com, and is currently the founder of Linux OS company Linspire, and the CEO of SIPphone.com, in addition to his role as CEO of Ajax13.
A video demo of ajaxWindows from Ajax13 is embedded below:
