Dell teams up with OnLive on cloud-gaming service

Dell today announced that it is working closely with OnLive Inc., a pioneer of on-demand, instant-play video games, to power the OnLive® Game Service, which launches on June 17 . Dell Data Center Solutions (DCS) has been helping OnLive for several years to custom-design servers tailored for the OnLive platform, allowing OnLive to quickly scale with the growth of its customer base, starting from what is already one of the largest GPU-powered server deployments to date .

“As a startup, it can be challenging to access the resources needed to produce and quickly scale computing infrastructure,” said Steve Perlman, Founder and CEO of OnLive. “Dell has been an outstanding partner, working closely with our engineers to design servers to our exact specifications and business needs, incorporating patented and patent-pending OnLive technology. Dell has the expertise and mechanisms in place that enable us to quickly ramp up to a mass-market scale for the delivery of the hottest games instantly through the Internet to gamers anywhere on a PC, Mac®, TV and other devices.”

In preparation for the launch of the OnLive Game Service at the 2010 E3 Expo, OnLive has been rapidly installing the customized Dell servers in its data centers. A DCS team worked directly with OnLive to design a unique, ultra-dense and power efficient infrastructure solution that would allow OnLive to scale quickly while driving down total cost of ownership. The resulting servers were designed around OnLive’s proprietary hardware and software, and were engineered specifically to address the complex challenges of instant access to HD-quality video games and other high-performance applications over the Internet.

Using the DCS supply chain and fulfillment expertise, Dell delivers the servers rack-integrated and ready to be hooked up and powered up the same day they arrive at an OnLive data center. Dell will continue to work closely with OnLive on new infrastructure designs for future generations of the service.

“Customers in the hyperscale data center segment like OnLive demand a different approach to infrastructure design and delivery, one that is customized and collaborative, and focused on dramatically reduced total cost of ownership,” said Forrest Norrod, vice president and general manager of server platforms, Dell. “Dell is proud to be working with a truly innovative company like OnLive to design and produce the infrastructure solutions that will help OnLive grow its business and bring this breakthrough service to gamers worldwide.”