Why would I need a Desktop Environment (a la KDE, Gnome) in a browser? What itch does this scratch?
Sync is an issue that causes pain for a lot of people- Microsoft has been trying to fix it since the mid 90s, and Dropbox et all do it well.
So I'm at work, with my email client open, and I've got a list of RSS feeds.. I want to check the same list of RSS feeds at home. I also want my email to all be synced properly, even the ones from that old POP3 server that doesn't support IMAP. I want my bookmarks, and browser history to sync, as well as my saved passwords. I want to pause the song I'm listening to in my office, hop in my car, and press Play again, then finish the playlist at home on my stereo.
All of these things have solutions now.. Dropbox, Weave, IMAP, etc.. But they're all disparate solutions. I'd pay money to have one solution that just worked. That let me keep my workflow online, rather than having to break it up. Something that synced everything, rather than each piece.
One of the best ways to do that is an OS where it all lives remotely. That way, there's no "sync" involved. It's all out on remote servers to begin with.
I use a combination of web-based applications, a ssh client, a collection of portable apps on a usb drive (including firefox from portableapps.com) and an iPod. It all works completely seamlessly without the need for a "Desktop Environment" in the browser.
I'm still at a loss as to what bringing a Desktop Environment to the web brings you. I understand the need for web apps, not the Desktop Environment.
(Also, can't you easily setup this for yourself and run existing desktop apps using VLC? Rather than just using half-baked apps that the WebOS devs have created?
They are trying to solve more than one problem but end up creating an unappealing solution. The real issue here is data portability - not data migration. Moving my e-life to a web based desktop will never work. Some of my documents are too sensitive to store online. What if I am using a browser with limited functionality. I'm a student and in a given day I must be using more than 3 different computers at least - all of which have a different system with different access restrictions. I wish flash worked properly or even existed in some cases but that is not the reality for people who really need this.
These products are all built on a notion of "what if we could..." not what is actually needed.
At the end of the day I want to access all my data anyway I want - usb, internet, ftp, http, pop, imap, ssh, sftp, yada yada. Now that would make my life so much simpler.