OnLive is, once again, tapping cloud gaming tech for business use

Stop us if this sounds familiar: after successfully launching and new a video game service, a growing cloud computing firm looks to the business sector to expand its customer base. Oh, you’ve heard this one? That’s because OnLive is retracing its steps, following up its CloudLift gaming service with an enterprise-focused counterpart. Onlive’s CloudLift Enterprise is built on the same promise as its older OnLive Desktop service: your work on any device at any time, but now it’s offering its customers a bit more than a virtualized desktop. Specifically, CloudLift enterprise is designed for graphic intensive applications like drone piloting setups, military training simulators, or applications for architecture and design. OnLive says it can deliver these applications to virtually any smartphone, tablet or laptop on any operating system over fairly slow connections, as low as 2Mbps.

On Thursday, OnLive launched CloudLift Enterprise, the company’s second attempt to adapt its cloud gaming services to the business space. Until now, OnLive has been the flag-bearer for cloud gaming, which uses low-latency connections between a thin client app on a PC or mobile device and a back-end server. Its CloudLift technology takes games that users have bought on Valve Software’s Steam service, or via OnLive, and accelerates them using its own high-end gaming machines. Now, the company has adapted that technology for business use. Working from the argument that PC games are about the most graphics-intensive application a user can buy, OnLive’s CloudLift Enterprise service takes the same approach to “graphics-intensive applications” like CAD programs, medical imaging software, and more. “Enterprises have told us that it is frustrating to build and deliver high-end applications for thin clients and remote devices given their hardware constraints,” Mark Jung, executive chairman of OnLive, in a statement. “They want to provide spectacular real-time graphics, and responsive, fluid experiences regardless of the devices their audience chooses to use.”