Nivio opens in beta, brings Windows to iPad, Android tablets

After a couple of private trial runs, nivio (the name is intentionally all-lowercase) has opened in limited beta to United States users. The service lets users have remote access to their own cloud-based Windows desktop, complete with app store-style access to premium applications for a monthly fee.

Nivio is made up of three parts: nDrive, nDesktop, and nApps. As the names may already suggest, they are a cloud storage platform, a cloud-based Windows desktop, and a platform for renting applications for your Windows desktop.

The idea behind nDesktop is that users can access a rented Windows desktop in any machine that has an HTML5-compatible browser or the nivio client application: iPad, iPhone, Android tablets, netbooks, notebooks, ultrabooks, or whatever. This way, users can do their Windows-specific tasks on whatever machine they have handy.

The nApp Store is an on-demand App-Store that lets users rent applications such as Microsoft Office for their nDesktop. By doing this, users don't have to buy the full version of expensive desktop software licenses, and they can just pay for what they need.

Nivio nDrive is like Dropbox, Box.net, or one of the many other web-based file sharing platforms. Users can, for example, create a document on their Windows PC, save it to their nDrive, and then edit it later with their iPad.

Interested beta testers can sign up on nivio's website. After the initial free trial, Beta testers get access to nDesktop for up to 10 hours, and 10GB of nDrive storage for $5 per month.