Progress Report

Summer has come to Stockholm, but we let our friends handle the beer drinking in the sun, so we can stay in the office developing our system.

Since we invited the first few developers a few months back we have had an enormous amount of progress –  every week we open the doors to more developers. If you are on the list but haven’t yet been invited, please bare with us.

Some more words on what we’ve been up to – except for polishing the UI and developing the file upload and download features we are good on way in developing the best mail application ever seen in a browser.

Stay tuned. And drink some beer in the sun for us, we don’t have time.

The Cloudo Team

Cloudo down for a couple of hours

Tonight (CET) Cloudo will be down due to server relocation. The service will be online again tomorrow morning (CET).
Sorry for the inconvenience.

Take care.

Q&A’s – General Declaration

Up till now, we have received great feedback from both people who have had access as well as those yet haven’t entered our system. In addition to the feedback there have been lots of questions and wonderings, many of which touch the same subjects. I would like to take a moment and address some of them as well as declare what kind of development path we are following...and most importantly why.

One recurring subject has been whether we’ll expose a downloadable version of Cloudo. Currently, we don’t have such plans but we are discussing of selling and distributing preinstalled Cloudo-servers. This is because we do recognize the needs and requirements from organizations hosting their own sensitive data, within their own firewalls. Of course, such strategically step requires careful technical planning of a redundant topological layout; such servers will subscribe to software enhancements provided by the development community. In return, the revenues from such commerce will be shared fairly among contributors. Yet another aspect is of course the need to foresee potential marketing pitfalls and these considerations needs to be made in collaboration with qualified professionals. Regardless of path, we will keep our focus on our adjacent primary goal; deploy a quality assured platform.

Thus far the selection of applications in Cloudo has been keenly remarked in various articles; why there isn’t any word-processing or spreadsheet application, etc. Such applications aren’t exactly space science and there are countless of them on the web. The reason to why we develop certain applications before others is because, along with the applications, we are developing the platform and filesystem with belonging security as well as community features. Once we consider a type of application with belonging API is refined, we test and quality assures it a while, get back to the technical bricks it is made of; re-test and refine it, if necessary.

As I see it, there are at least four types of applications in our platform;

1. Wear and tear applications; no or small footprints on users account. For instance simple widgets and games (user vs computer).
2. Load and Save applications; applications that loads and saves files to the filesystem. For instance, Textpad and Development Tool
3. Continuously connected applications; such applications continuously exchange data with the server. For instance Calendar and Mail client
4. Open file- applications; such applications are also continuously exchanging data with the server, but they subscribe to a special type of file; open file. Such file type will be utilized by IM-applications, chat rooms, multiplayer games, trivial solutions as high score tables for games as well as transactional procedures. My opinion is that this filetype will be useful in numerous innovational applications.

Currently, we are working on the third type of applications; continuously connected applications along with community features, since these solutions go hand in hand.

We sincerely thank you all for all the feedback and most importantly; your patience.

Goals and objectives

Our aim with Cloudo is to offer a complete set of tools required by the common user and facilitate for her to perform her daily duties. We understand the gravity of this statement and we sure don’t underestimate the magnitude of the impediments ahead of us. We pose a humble but firm stance in front of this task.

Our course of action is to, when required, start the development process of whatever application that is needed but our intention is to hand over the application, its source code and the development process to you. We don’t want to own the application; we want you to own it.

Consequently, you will decide whether your application will be offered for the user for free or whether it should require start/recurring fees or just simply; be a service financed by ads exposed in your application. Regardless of choice, we will enable patterns so that developers receive the fruits of their labor and hopefully encourage them to further develop and refine their applications in a sensible and responsible fashion.

This is the reason to why we are exposing the source codes of several applications in Cloudo. As many of the invited users already experienced, the application definition framework is rather straightforward and logical. Currently the development tool is rather simple but there are functionalities in the pipeline and our objective is to create an inspiring and creative environment as well as, make you feel at home.

Yes, our intention is to mimic functionality existing in popular development environments.

No, it is not impossible. There are already innovational web based solutions out there. We merely will create streamlined versions of everything…together with you.

Cloudo RedOrbit Site Of The Day

Today we are featured as one of our favorite technology sites, Red Orbit's site of the day. If you haven't already, check them out.

Let's dance

Hello developer,
The other day, we sent out press releases in Sweden and USA, proclaiming the launch of our platform Cloudo. Additionally we have created accounts and invited developers and other handpicked users to take a look at the system. At this stage of our launch, we are targeting developers and I have initiated IM-sessions with several of the invited developers and the pattern is clear; there is an initial skepticism and slight resistance but after discovering features and advantages, some overcame their initial thoughts and the rest even became euphoric.

But what are the benefits for the common developer?

Developing a moderate solution for the web usually requires several technologies: clientside-, serverside-programming as well as database-knowledge. Commonly, these technologies each require its experienced programmer to put the correct and logical piece in place and achieve a well-working solution. Of course, the solution often requires updates and modifications and that in turn results for even more areas in which misinterpretations and errors can occur, because these modifications requires, in worst case scenario, that all of the programmers mentioned earlier are involved.

With Cloudo, we aim to simplify this process by eliminating some steps and integrate others into our platform, so that the developer only needs to work with a single file which is much easier to overview and extend. Notice that the platform will enable same type of functionality as the previous example. The difference will be that it will be faster and with several default graphical user interfaces. Interface and technology are separated so that technically oriented people can focus exclusively on technology and graphical artists can focus solely on interface related enhancements.

Most importantly, as developer you will not need to worry about whether Cloudo is running in Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari. The support of several browsers is important to us and we will deal with that issue and it will be transparent for you as a developer.

Metaphorically speaking; on our dance floor, we will do our best efforts to accommodate your demands and to enable you to put up the show you want, whether your need is change of music or scenery. We want to adapt and dance to whatever you want and facilitate as much as possible for you in your quest.
We will not limit you unlike other environments; only play same old boring and outdated disco music all the time.

Let’s dance…

Cloudo Opens For Developers

We just sent out this press release:

P R E S S I N F O R M A T I O N

Cloudo – the World’s Fastest and Easiest To Use Online Computer Opens For Developers
– Swedish Startup Invites Developers Around the World To Alpha Program

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN – February 19th – Today, after three years of development, Swedish Startup Cloudo begins to invite developers to a private development alpha for their soon-to-be-released Internet Operating System, starting with it’s 20 000 pre signup developer base.

Cloudo, which was previously developed under the name Xindesk, is in essence a virtual computer that runs right in the web browser, enabling users to access their data from any computer, cell phone or other device connected to the Internet.

“The computers we use today are based on a set of ideas and concepts that were developed in the late 70’s, they haven’t evolved to meet the demands of today’s mobile lifestyle and the possibilities the Internet offers”, says Ted Persson, co-founder of the Cloudo Company. “Among 20 year-olds more than 95% of the time by the computer is spent online. Cloudo is the natural next step, taking the full desktop online”.

With built in social networking functionality, Cloudo makes it far more easy to collaborate, enabling you to share documents and folders, calendars or even workspaces among groups of friends or colleagues.

Cloudo features all the basic applications needed, but also has a sophisticated development environment making it possible for third party developers to develop applications with a few keystrokes.

“There are many benefits of developing for Cloudo. With it’s social networking capabilities built in, it’s easy to reach a broad base of users with your applications. It is far easier and faster to put together applications for Cloudo than developing traditional desktop or web applications.” says Hakan Bilgin, system architect of Cloudo.

The development program is set up as a revenue sharing program, making it profitable for developers to continually enhance the Cloudo environment by developing applications.

To head up the development of Cloudo the company just appointed Linda Norrstrand, with a background in man- agement consulting and strategic communication, as it’s new CEO.

Cloudo is a free, advertising based service and is available for selected developers starting today. Sign up at cloudo.com.

For more information, please contact:
Ted Persson, co-founder
ted@cloudo.com
Phone: +46 (0) 709 922 632

The Cloudo Company was founded in 2006 in Stockholm, Sweden by Hakan Bilgin, Fredric Gunnarson, Ted Persson and Ola Persson backed up by the investment company GW Group. The company is privately held and has it’s head office in Stockholm, Sweden. The Cloudo Company’s CEO is Linda Norrstrand. Cloudo was formerly developed under the name Xindesk, and has a sister service called Widgetplus.com.


Get this press release in PDF version here.