What will the the next-generation internet look like? According to the makers of YouOS, much like your current computer desktop. YouOS implements a windowing user interface, complete with taskbar, file explorer, trash bin and even a command prompt, running in a web browser.

It is all done with JavaScript, making heavy use of the Dojo Ajax toolkit, which counts IBM among its sponsors. YouOS is underpinned by server-side APIs including an online storage system currently built on Amazon’s S3 service, a permissions system, and a range of additional application services.

YouOS describes itself as experimental. Its chief attraction is continuity. When you need to do some work, simply connect to the internet from any computer, log in to YouOS, and there is your desktop with its documents and apps. It is a superb demonstration of the power of JavaScript and web services, yet as a web operating system, I fear it misses the point.

YouOS also seems unlikely to attract the developer support it needs, since developing applications specifically for the YouOS API seems needlessly restrictive. The idea of being able to sit down at any net-connected computer and do your work is indeed compelling; but YouOS is not required.

This year has seen a number of high-profile advances towards a web-based office suite. Google, for example, has added to its online email service with the acquisition of Writely, an online word processor. It has also released a preview of Google Spreadsheet and let slip that it has an online storage system planned, perhaps called GDrive.

However, while apps such as Writely and Google Spreadsheets are amazing because they work, they are simultaneously disappointing compared with their desktop equivalents, so few of us are tempted to use them for real work.

YouOS is a similar experience. It is also worth noting that many of us routinely connect to remote desktops over the internet using existing technology and get the full-featured model rather than one cobbled together with script.

There are two possible ways forward. One is for the web experience to improve to the point where it can compete with the local desktop. It will happen, but not quickly. The other is for web apps to focus on what they can do much, much better than LAN-bound equivalents, which is sharing and collaboration beyond the firewall.

It is amazing how businesses still shunt documents back and forth through our unreliable email systems, rather than publishing them to an internet location where they can be securely shared. That is the important feature of a web-based office, which outguns misguided efforts to replicate the local dektop.