News story

JISC Technology Watch open call for report on Service Clouds

Mon 10th Sep, 2007

JISC Technology and Standards Watch announces the publication of an open call for a report on service clouds and the future of browsers and desktop operating systems.

For some time there have been predictions that the browser could replace the desktop operating system as the primary interface for accessing and controlling applications. Recent moves by Google (for example, in purchasing Writely, a browser-based word processing package) suggest that this might be becoming viable. Increasingly, technology commentators argue that applications will move off the desktop to become services provided over the Web through a 'service cloud'. Such applications are sometimes referred to as 'thin' clients or Rich Internet Applications (RIA) in contrast to desktop-based applications, which are considered 'thick'.

At the same time Microsoft has launched Vista, Apple continues to release updates to MacOS, and Linux is being widely adopted. But is this the last hurrah of the desktop operating system?

Potential authors with interest and relevant experience in this area should read the full commissioning brief, available from the JISC TechWatch site, before contacting the TechWatch editorial team:

http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/services/services_techwatch/techwatch/techwatch_ic_reports2004_open.aspx