First look: Nivio virtual desktop

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 3 Sep 2007 at 18:05

A virtual Windows desktop accessed through a web browser is an old, but still interesting, concept and one which has recently revived by Nivio, an AMD-backed startup.

Nivio, currently in its beta phase, allows customers to rent a Windows XP environment, 5GB of space and free desktop applications such as Open Office for $12.99 a month, all backed by the promise that their data will be constantly backed up and secured on the latest server technology.

In theory customers can customise their Nivio desktop, download software and access their data wherever they have a broadband internet connection. In practice, the beta promises more than it delivers.

As ever with online services, performance is the major stumbling block. Nivio is slow throughout; from opening up and loading the personal settings right through to navigating the desktop and running whatever software you've paid for.

While Open Office's Writer software runs serviceably when creating short documents, the menus are slow and there is a noticeable delay between typing and keystroke recognition that can become very distracting, especially when creating longer pieces. Microsoft Word is even worse.

Desktop publishing is also a chore with the creation of a graphics-intensive document liable to bring Microsoft Publisher to its knees. On a couple of occasions the entire desktop froze or crashed outright in our tests.

While the desktop is purportedly compatible with all browsers, crashes are more frequent in Firefox and it will only open in a window, despite the existence of a full screen option. This wasn't a problem in Internet Explorer.

Crashes are a common occurence in Nivio

In terms of software selection, Open Office and Microsoft Office are on offer, though the latter costs $13 a month. All the major browsers, instant messaging services and utilities are also available for download, but there's no Adobe Photoshop, which could be a deal breaker for some. According to Nivio's forums the company is working on getting hold of the licence.

There is also an acknowledged problem with streaming video, with performance sometimes slideshow slow, though once again the Nivio team says it recognises the problem and is working to correct it.

When hosted desktop services such as Nivio first appeared at the height of the dotcom boom, their performance problems were blamed on the lack of available bandwidth. Yet, even on today's relatively high-speed connections services such as Nivio still fail to even come close to desktop speeds. Perhaps the problem isn't the bandwidth, but the entire concept.