This week is the start of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. At the event today, OnLive announced some new features that their users have been waiting for, for quite some time.
Today they announced the release of their free, OnLive Desktop app. The app will be available on iPad, Android devices, PCs, Macs and TVs. However, it will initially only be available for the iPad. The Desktop App will be available for download in the iTunes App Store starting on Thursday in the United States, and soon thereafter in the UK.
The app will include access to full-featured, media-rich Windows 7 applications. These applications will be remotely hosted on powerful PC servers in the cloud, similar to those that OnLive currently uses for its cloud gaming service.
“OnLive Desktop delivers a seamless Windows desktop experience, with instant response multi-touch gestures, together with a full on-screen Windows keyboard and handwriting recognition, enabling complete and convenient viewing and editing of even the most complex documents,” said OnLive in a statement, earlier today. “Rich media, such as video, animation, slide transitions and even PC games, never before practical via remote desktop delivery, run fluidly and dynamically with instant-action interactivity. OnLive Desktop makes remote feel local”
There is a free version as well as a paid version of the new OnLive Desktop App. The free version will include 2 GB of cloud storage. It will also include Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, plus several other Windows utilities and touch games.
Using instant-response touch gestures such as pinch and zoom, flick to scroll, drag, drop and Aero snap, users will be able to quickly and easily navigate files, open, edit and save the ones they need, and store them securely in the cloud for access from any device through a simple Web interface.
Word Documents
PC apps have full desktop functionality: Word documents can be created and edited with full redline and commenting capability, using a Windows touch-screen keyboard, handwriting recognition or Bluetooth keyboard.
PowerPoint Presentation
PowerPoint presentations can be created with rich graphics, videos and animated slide transitions, and even presented directly from the iPad, either onscreen or via an external monitor.
Excel
Data can be updated and analyzed instantly in Excel, translated into graphs and transferred into presentation documents.
“OnLive Desktop is the first app to deliver a no-compromise, media-rich Windows desktop experience to iPad, opening up powerful new possibilities for consumers and businesses,” said OnLive Founder and CEO, Steve Perlman. “iPad users will now be able to simply and securely view and edit cloud-hosted documents with full featured Windows desktop applications like Microsoft Office, just as if they were using a local high-performance PC. Multi-touch gestures respond instantly and smoothly, while HD videos, animations and PC video games—never before usable on a remote desktop—play seamlessly.”
OnLive Desktop Pro is coming soon, with 50 GB of cloud storage, priority access, full-featured cloud-accelerated web browsing, additional PC apps, and other OnLive-unique features for $9.99/month (US).
OnLive Web Browser
OnLive is also announcing the launch of the cloud based web browser, which has been much anticipated by many OnLive users. It was initially supposed to be released this past summer, but due to overwhelming demand for OnLive’s service as a whole, it was pushed back. The cloud web browser is said to accelerate browsing speeds, especially on smartphones and tablets. For now it will only be made available in the $9.99/month plan when it released.
OnLive is also announcing their “Enterprise” plan, meant for businesses and organizations of any size, seeking centralized, secure computing resources, as well as Independent Software Vendors seeking to deliver custom applications. With OnLive Enterprise, IT departments have full control of user entitlements/access privileges to both retail and ISV applications, while enabling users to access the same applications through any device.
An example of the OnLive Entreprise plan was provided by OnLive
“A hospital can entitle different levels of records access to doctors, receptionists and patients, with full privacy, whether data is viewed on a smartphone, computer, on an easily-sterilized tablet in an examining room, or even on a hospital room TV. No user data is left behind on any device, so records remain secure if a device is lost or stolen."
OnLive Desktop Pro and Enterprise support exclusive OnLive collaborative services. Building on the same proven technology as the massive spectating Arena of the OnLive Game Service, OnLive securely enables as many as thousands of simultaneous users to view one or many OnLive Desktops from any device, with live spectating and group chat, and multi-user control. Whether using OnLive collaborative services as a shared document reader or virtual whiteboard in a small workgroups, for chatting over home videos among far-flung family members, or for lecturing with Q&A to an audience of thousands of students around the world, OnLive provides instant, media-rich collaboration.
The OnLive Desktop iPad app will be available Thursday to U.S. customers for free in the iTunes App Store, and will be released soon in the UK. Customers are encouraged to sign up early for their free OnLive account, available today at desktop.onlive.com.
