פרוייקט היזמים - כתבה מס.6 - G.ho.st

2007 was our second year of operations at G.ho.st.  G.ho.st (pronounced "ghost") is an acronym of Global Hosted Operating SysTem - and as the name suggests we are trying to provide a full OS-as-a-service - in the browser - in competition with Microsoft Windows.  It’s an ambitous play and during 2007 we we are able to grow a strong team, get a substantial alpha product live, raise a series A, get over 100,000 people to try the service and put G.ho.st on the map with tens of thousands of Google hits. This is by no means enough to ensure we are on the path to success.

During 2007, the Web 2.0 trend really gained momentum and the competition for the attention of the Web consumer is fierce. Our alpha has been very well received but the only thing that matters is breaking into the mainstream of Web consumers - that is our challenge for 2008.

We are betting that the Web 2.0 industry will mature in 2008.  In 2007 social networks became mainstream.  But hosted productivity apps like Google Docs, Zoho, ThinkFree, are still used by a smaller group of advanced users, despite the benefits of being available everywhere and admin-free.  G.ho.st is betting that these become more mainstream and that users start to demand the convenience of an operating-system - a single desktop, single sign-on, single file system and some standrads for look-and-feel.  The more Web services you use, the more you need a layer to help you keep track of all your stuff in a consistent way.

That’s from a user perspective. In the meantime the Web 2.0 vendors are suffering from the lack of standards. At G.ho.st we did a number of one-off integrations in 2007. One-off integrations are hugely wasteful of R&D resources. Being a new and small player that cost was usually ours, not the partner’s. Now we are active in OpenSAM.org and hopefully in 2008 that will allow us to interoperate with some other Web 2.0 vendors without custom integrations.

As for us, the G.ho.st Virtual Computer has come a long way in the last year. It scores well on functionality but less well on two important criteria - simplicity and performance. We are now giving those issues a higher priority than adding more features.  During 2008 we will must make the G.ho.st Virtual Computer into a real alterantive to Windows in every way. Then people will have the real option of having their entire computing environment on the Web taking advantage of the growing world of Web 2.0 Applications, aggregated by the G.ho.st Virtual Computer.