eyeOS runs quite happily on a shared server, I have an installation myself. As we’re using more and more software online, word processing, email, Content management, contact relationship management etc. the hard drive software is becoming less important.

Now I do agree that technically it isn’t an operating system, how will you access it without a local filesystem and browser, but it does mean true os’s may not need to be so important. A small solid-state hard disk could be all that’s needed.

A file sync is possible however not out-of-the-box. Using a simple database connection and FTP, something could be integrated quite easily. A web-based java ap could work wonders.

A unix based file system would do more harm than good online, you don’t want files to be accessed by anyone who can guess the directories and filenames in their browser.

Security is definitely an issue, there’s no denying that. If you can access it from anywhere then so can anyone else potentially. Perhaps linking it to a specific MAC address for basic login and ultra secure logins when using from other machines could work.

It doesn’t need to be expensive, and if all your employees are using cloud systems, the physical security problems with a portable laptop on planes, taxis, cars, cafe’s, homes etc becomes less important. The UK government would stop losing our personal data left right and centre on flash disks and so on.

Yes it’s in it’s infancy, but there is potential there to utilise the processing power of the internet as a whole rather than one machine.