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G.ho.st

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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Fredrikc (talk | contribs) at 15:28, 27 September 2010 (→External links: Changed homepage to the new page and removed the non-working mobile link). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

G.ho.st
Developer(s)Ghost Inc.
TypeWeb application
Websitehttp://ghost.cc/
Ghost Inc.
Company typePrivate
Founded2006
Headquarters
Ramallah, West Bank and Jerusalem, Israel
Key people
Zvi Schreiber, CEO
Websitehttp://ghost.cc/

G.ho.st (usually pronounced ghost) is the trading name of Ghost Inc. and the service name and URL of the company's hosted computer operating system or WebOS service. Its name is an acronym of Global Hosted Operating SysTem. The old URL G.ho.st is a domain hack using the Sao Tome and Principe .st country extension and more recently Ghost has moved to http://Ghost.cc. As of April 2010 Ghost has closed its service due to competition and lack of funding.

Overview

The G.ho.st service provides, over the Internet, a working environment that mimics the classic desktop provided by personal computer operating systems. As an internet-based service, users are able to create, save and return to a working environment from different physical computers and mobile phones. G.ho.st calls itself a virtual computer. In July 2009 the software entered beta stage development, and as of now it remains in this stage. The beta launch near Jerusalem was attended by Quartet Representative and former UK prime minister Tony Blair[1][2]. The Company's primary investor is Benchmark Capital.

Such services are not considered operating systems in the traditional sense although they are sometimes referred to as Web Operating Systems. Whilst they can include a GUI (e.g. a desktop), a (virtual) file system, application management and security, they do not contain a kernel to interface with physical hardware. Therefore, to use the service an operating system is required, supporting at least a web browser from which the service can be run.

The G.ho.st Virtual Computer is hosted on Amazon Web Services and can be seen as utilizing cloud computing on the backend and delivering a consumer version of cloud computing.[3] According to the G.ho.st website, it is planned to additionally offer a commercial, fully-featured and scalable private cloud file system (Ghost Cloud File System, CFS) that is designed to run within the customer's own Amazon web services account. The business model will be based on surcharges to Ghost which will be collected by Amazon.[4]

The company has received growing press coverage, relating both to the technology[5] and because Israelis and Palestinians work as partners to build the company's products. It is considered to be the only joint Palestinian and Israeli technology startup company[1][6] and the first company to offer employee stock options in the Palestinian Territories.[7]

Closure

On March 3, 2010, Ghost.cc (formed G.ho.st) sent the users the following e-mail:

Dear Ghost User, We hope you have been enjoying our free Ghost service. Regrettably changes in the marketplace mean that it is no longer economical for us to host the Ghost service and we will be closing down the service on or around March 15. We will instead be focusing on licensing or selling our technology to larger companies. We advise you to migrate ALL important folders, files and emails to another secure place before March 15. You might like to consider Google Docs or Microsoft SkyDrive for files and services such as Gmail or Yahoo! Mail for email. Some instructions for migrating data are included below. We are really sorry for any inconvenience this may cause you and are very grateful for the fantastic support we had from our community.

Features

  • Integration with third-party web applications (Google Docs, ThinkFree, Meebo, Zoho)
  • Mail/calendar/contacts program (with 10GB free powered by Zimbra)
  • Storage called My G.ho.st Drive (15GB free, FTP access)
  • Smart icons and tags for external internet resources such as files, products and people (Tagging Things)
  • Desktop widgets (RSS Reader, Calculator, clock, Yahoo Weather, Stickies, Google Search)
  • Multiple language support
  • Virtual File System shows files stored by G.ho.st Drive, Google Docs and others with a consistent explorer
  • G.ho.st Sync - an installed application which synchronizes files between the local computer and G.ho.st Drive
  • File sharing

See also

Similar services:

References

  • "G.ho.st(TM) Runs Zoho(TM) Applications". Yahoo. 2007-09-11.
  1. ^ a b Tech Startup Bridges Mideast Divide BusinessWeek, 27 December 2007
  2. ^ High-tech Israeli-Palestinian firm defies barriers AP in Yahoo! News, 15 July 2009
  3. ^ [1] By Amazon.com, 2008.
  4. ^ [2]
  5. ^ G4 Attack of the Show about G.ho.st
  6. ^ Co-operation in the ether The Economist, 23 July 2009
  7. ^ Israelis and Palestinians Launch Web Start-Up By DINA KRAFT, New York Times, May 29, 2008.
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