Zero PC – cloud computing specifically for education

My cloud bio is much like many others here – I draw on google apps sparingly and have been storing documents in my gmail account since 2005. I’ve used Dropbox in a collaborative project I was working on, and it was really helpful there. I generally use cloud storage as a backup for my primary storage on my laptop and my external hard drive.

I did my A1 on a cloud computing startup – ZeroDesktop – that I think is a bit unique in this quickly-becoming saturated market. They’re unique in that they are specifically targeting the education and independent consumer markets… not businesses. Their core service, ZeroPC, is a virtual desktop; you sign in on any internet browser, and the user interface looks and acts as a desktop. They aren’t the only cloud computing company specifically targeting education; in my research, I also found schoolweblockers (as in lockers, not blockers), for storing students’ homework assignments.

I found the ZeroPC service very interesting for a couple of reasons – the first is that it aims to provide full desktop services completely in the cloud. This is different from many cloud offerings that are supplementary to desktop computing. I also found it really interesting given the rise in tablets; this service makes tablets as fully functional as a personal computer. This can really improve access to computers for people who can’t afford desktops or laptops. As others have noted this week, services like ZeroPC adopted on a district wide level can radically reduce the district’s IT costs.

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