Microsoft experiments with ‘HomeOS’ and home app store ideas

Mary Jo Foley has an interesting post about a Microsoft Research project called “HomeOS”. It seems to be a way of getting heterogeneous and often incompatible networks to work together at home. I think the idea is to have home operating system complete with App Store. Mary Jo has an interesting quote from the unpublished paper:

“We argue that heterogeneity is hindering technological innovation in the home—homes differ in terms their devices and how those devices are connected and used. To abstract these differences, we propose to develop a home-wide operating system. A HomeOS can simplify application development and let users easily add functionality by installing new devices or applications”

I would imagine as with most Microsoft Research projects the technologies will get rolled into other Microsoft products, its a great idea but I think having one OS to rule the home is never going to happen. It would be better to get the devices and systems to work together with technologies like DLNA but some companies ( like Apple) have no interest working with other platforms and want to keep you in their closed system.

Checkout Mary Jo’s post for her thoughts on the project