OnLive branched out of their streaming game service earlier this year when they launched their OnLive Desktop service for the iPad. The company offers cloud-based versions of several of the programs in the Microsoft Office software suite via their high speed connections to iPad owners. The Desktop Plus service adds super-fast access to the Internet via Internet Explorer 9. OnLive recently added support for a number of Android-based tablets.
Now Microsoft is taking notice of OnLive's activities and it apparently doesn't like what it sees. In a post on the Microsoft Volume Licensing blog site, the company says that their Services Provider License Agreement "does not support delivery of Windows 7 as a hosted client or provide the ability to access Office as a service through Windows 7. Office may only be provided as a service if it is hosted on Windows Server and Remote Desktop Services."
According to Microsoft's statement:
We are actively engaged with OnLive with the hope of bringing them into a properly licensed scenario, and we are committed to seeing this issue is resolved. In the meantime, it is of the highest importance to Microsoft that our partners have clear guidance so that they can continue to deliver exceptional expertise and creative solutions to customers within parameters of licensing policies.
So far, OnLive has yet to respond to Microsoft's blog post but we have emailed their to get a statement.
21 Comments - Add comment