IBM is teaming up with eyeOS, the maker of an open-source, web-based operating system. We’ve had our (ahem) eye on eyeOS for quite some time. It’s receiving renewed interest in the wake of the much anticipated launch of Google Chrome OS.
IBM will offer eyeOS 2.0, available in January, to all customers who buy IBM’s System Z mainframe servers. SystemZ servers are used mainly by large organizations for data processing purposes. So eyeOS will be used as a desktop in the cloud for potentially thousands of enterprise users.
This is a huge win for eyeOS, making it one of Google’s biggest competitors in the web OS or “webtop,” space. IBM has a huge channel for distributing eyeOS, which will better position the Barcelona-based company in the enterprise market.
Questions still remain about the eyeOS platform. IBM is adopting the software for availability on its servers, which raises questions about eyeOS as a true cloud offering. The beauty of cloud computing is its ease of use, with the Web as its backbone.
As our own Sarah Perez wrote in September about eyeOS:
“Besides, offering the host-your-own solution almost misses the point of being a web OS. The promise of cloud computing is that it’s supposed to make our lives easier – our data lives on the web now and not on our fallible hard disks and CDs. We don’t have to backup, because Google (or any other cloud vendor) does that for you. We don’t have to worry with hard drive space either – we use the cloud, sometimes even for a fee, and we can get to our data from anywhere using any device. And all this is provided to you within your browser.”
Nonetheless, this is a big step forward for eyeOS and validation that this kind of “webtop” solution may have legs after all.
