As Google continues to twiddle it’s fingers over Chrome OS a rival ‘cloud OS’ called ‘Jolicloud’ has been making waves for the last few months. Jolicloud Operating System was developed by a company which was started by the founder of Netvibes; the OS has been gaining popularity and already seems like a viable alternative to Google’s Chrome OS.

Similarities between Chrome OS and Jolicloud

Jolicloud was developed just for netbooks in much the same way Chrome OS is being developed exclusively for netbooks by Google.

A netbook is not a traditional laptop: its screen size is usually smaller (around 10 inch) and the processing power does not allow you to do much more than web browsing, and using multimedia and office apps. Jolicloud was designed with this usage in mind.

This puts Jolicloud in direct competition with Google’s offering to the netbook market.

To make matters worse, Jolicloud is also based on Linux just like Google’s Chrome OS. This means that not only are both operating systems attempting to reach the same market segment but they sit on the exact same architecture hence further limiting their distinction.

More so this means that both Jolicloud and Chrome OS are open source meaning that developers in the community can freely distribute and modify their respective source codes. This therefore means that netbook manufacturers and consumers alike won’t have to choose between the two operating systems based on costs alone.

Adding to the list of similarities between these cloud operating systems:

They both work with web apps
Both get updates and bug fixes on boot
File storage is mostly on the cloud
Both are based around the web browser

Even despite these further similarities, Jolicloud chose to use Google Chrome as their default web browser. This creates an even greater blur between the two because by running Chrome 6, Jolicloud users will be able to run and install Apps from the upcoming Google WebStore.

It’s difficult to differentiate the two
This then leaves my article in a compromising position; after all this ‘versus’ seems to have turned into a ‘spot the difference’. Even so it is difficult to come to any other conclusion that to accept that the two operating systems are pretty much the same.

If Google plays it’s cards right with Chrome OS, they should be able to differentiate Their operating system by ‘pumping out’ the UI, offering exceptional security and most of all; exceptional speeds and reliability.

If you would like to try out Jolicloud, you can download it here.