Intel Corp.’s investment arm Intel Capital today announced seven companies that have received a total of $24 million to encourage their continued innovation in bringing the benefits of cloud computing to a wide variety of different enterprises, including two in games. Listed alphabetically, they are DynamicOps, enLighted, Gaikai, Guavus, IP Commerce, Revolution Analytics and Swrve New Media. Intel declined to specify how the funds were allocated.
Of the two recipients in the game industry, Intel Capital already had been an investor in Gaikai, which provides a browser-based cloud gaming service. Gaikai is aligned with Intel’s compute continuum and visual computing strategies for delivering games to any client that supports display of video, Intel said in a statement, adding that by making game demos instantly playable on any website, Gaikai delivers players and drives sales in a very cost-effective way.
Swrve is still in private beta, but at launch will provide game personalization and testing for social games that it says will “redefine the relationship” between game makers and game players. It enables game design, product and marketing teams to get instant feedback from players, making it possible for them to continually test and adjust their games in the cloud while maximizing engagement. Intel said Swrve is aligned with its visual computing software strategy and enables game designers to improve monetization through analysis of in-game events and transactions.
“The best computing experiences unite leading-edge hardware with amazing software,” said Arvind Sodhani, president of Intel Capital and Intel executive vice president. “These investments in best-of-breed software vendors play an integral part in Intel’s software strategy by fueling the creation of compelling and unique user experiences across devices. They also demonstrate our stage-agnostic approach to investing in support of this ecosystem.”
Intel Capital has previously invested in Revolution Analytics, which provides commercial software and services based on the open source “R” project for statistical computing in industries such as finance, life sciences, retail, manufacturing and media.
The others are new recipients of Intel investment. DynamicOps has what it calls an Operations Virtualization platform that enables companies to turn their existing infrastructure into on-demand private and public cloud services, providing the ability to respond to market dynamics faster and more economically. EnLighted addresses commercial energy management with a solution that offers simple installation and maintenance-free operation, bringing distributed intelligence to traditional lighting fixtures. Guavus specializes in rapidly codifing industry-specific analytics applications, including an integrated and scalable platform coupled with a business logic layer. Solutions on the Guavus’ decisioning platform are being used by major communications service providers to maximize revenue and control costs. IP Commerce provides a Platform-as-a-Service that functions as a commerce operating system, including the management of payments, security, underwriting risk, network connectivity and integration.
Related Links:
http://www.revolutionanalytics.com
Character image courtesy of Crytek, cloud gaming visualization by Gaikai
