OnLive Virtual Windows 7 Desktop Violates Terms - Microsoft

Microsoft has revealed that it is not happy with OnLive for offering access to Windows 7 on iPad and Android tablets for free and without a license.

In a blog post Joe Matz, corporate vice president of worldwide licensing and pricing for Microsoft, said that the company is "actively engaged" with OnLive.

OnLive is bvest known as the company which allows users to play console quality games on their TV, PC, laptop or tablet without having to do any of the graphical processing locally, relying instead on company's servers to do the heavy lifting and then streaming the games to the end user.

More recently, the company began offering an application for iPad and Android tablets which runs a virtual copy of Windows 7, simply called Onlive Desktop, letting users do anything a desktop computer can on their tablet, with the processing again taking place on OnLive's servers.

Matz added that, following recent media coverage of OnLive's Windows 7 application, Microsoft is "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." The App reamins available in the App Store and the Android Market.

It is unclear as to what the exact problem is, but Microsoft is presumably unhappy that OnLive users can use Windows 7 without paying for it and without having a license to use it.

OnLive launched the app for iPad in January and offers a virtual desktop of Windows 7, as well as the suite of Office programmes and 2GB of cloud storage for free.

At the time of writing, OnLive has not replied to International Business Times UK's request for comment.