Jolicloud, anyone?

I've written before about Google Chrome OS and have been anticipating the arrival of some more mainstream cloud operating systems. From a stand point of a tech working around several older labs, I like the idea of taking the burden off of an older machine and putting it on the internet connection with a cloud OS. Chrome OS would be idea because of the manageability of it and Google Apps for Education program. However, it doesn't look like Google will just release the OS by itself. Yes, I can get a copy of Cherry or one of the other distributions but I need something official and stable for use in a k12 school.

I did find and play with Jolicloud which I feel is the next best thing. It's similar and quite useful. Did I mention it was free? It has some great features and would work in my labs but I would not have the same control over creating a mass amount of logins for the students. Here's a screen shot from my login.

If you know much about it then you realize that all of the icons on the desktop are web shortcuts that Windows or Mac could have and not depend solely on the internet connection. The OS is Linux with Jolicloud and although there are some offline settings, the whole point of the OS is to put the weight of the computing on the internet. Google and others are betting quite a bit that this is the direction that they need to move towards. There is a web app for just about anything you want to do.