The return to mainframes and terminals 2

In addition to my post The return to mainframes and terminals.

AjaxLaunch is producing some interesting online software.
Wordprocessor - AjaxWrite
Graphics - diagrams and so on - AjaxSketch

AjaxOS is very very interesting

ajaxOS is an operating system that has been customized to be fully AJAX "aware". By seamlessly integrating the power of web based applications with Linspire, ajaxOS recognizes any compatible file (doc, svg, odf, txt, xls, etc...) and launches the most up-to-date AJAX software from a Firefox browser.

What are the implications for this on a school and the advantages that this might pose for education.

The Dutch municipality of Groningen has not renewed its contract with Microsoft and will be using Open Office. Original article in German. English translation The article talked about savings but they will continue to have windows for a while and there is still the cost of maintaining the computers and the operating system. They have to deal with the software upgrades and so on.

In the case of ajaxOS, the only thing that is running on the computers is this and a web browser. Not much to go wrong is there. Access to all of the applications (word processor, spreadsheet, etc) comes via the internet. In a school these computers would be dead simple to look after and the fact that the applications were available over the internet, students would have easy access to the same tools.

The only limitation is access to a decent broadband connection but this is becoming more and more common. More specialised large data file size applications like video editing might not work like this.