| I mentioned Xcerion in an earlier post. Here’s a quick look on their newly named icloud application and a brief introduction to the company. |  *Courtesy of Xcerion AB |
Xcerion was founded as early as 2001 with the aim to create a world class operating system that can be run from your browser. Their slogan is that “software should be free”. Xcerion lists a few milestones of the company as seen below:
- 2008 Xcerion rebrands to icloud and wins Red Herring 100 Europe Award
- 2007 Northzone Ventures invests 10 MUSD
- 2006 Investment from US investors
- 2004 US Operations launched with office in Seattle
- 2003 Proof-of-concept prototype created out of R&D
- 2002 “Stealth Mode”, R&D evolving previous research
- 2001 Xcerion emerged with clear focus on Information
- 1998 Daniel Arthursson and his tech team developed the worlds first XML Server
As a sidenote Xcerion is located among others in Linköping Sweden, a very interesting region for people looking to hire world class application developers.
Logging into the application my first impression is really, wow is this really possible to do with a browser. The GUI is really slick and navigation between the applications really feels much more like a “standard” desktop than anything else. This is of course nothing that makes icloud stand out in itself but its a nice touch.
The main points argued on the Xcerion homepage about the icloud is how its very easy to create new applications for the icloud and from the start they seem to first focus on the developing community … currently offering a developer competition. I unfortunately don’t have the time to look into the system but info is of course available on their homepage.
Looking at the icloud application I see many uses but maybe most of all I think its useful for very inexpensive terminals that does not have much more than browser capabilities. Using the icloud for these kind of applications could be a very inexpensive way to build eg wifi terminals in logistical processes (mount on trucks, workstations, etc), build into stereos etc.
Xcerion with its icloud feels like one of those make or break kind of companies, 99% chance of failure 1% chance of becoming a global leader in its field.
It will be very interesting to see how Xcerion intends to market and distribute their system when its ready for a real launch, I’m guessing its still quite some time though since they currently only support IE browsers.
I hope they do well.