One of the more intriguing booths at the Parks Associates’ Connections Conference was ViaCube and their Web OS. Via Cube is a cloud computing solution that can be configured as sort of a hybrid solution, whereby a home appliance can be used as a local store of data. At the same time, the customer benefits from a cloud computing environment in that their content is naturally portable and much more durable thanks to the cloud computing environment.

The big advantage to their approach is that their solution eliminates the need for the consumer to have to worry about maintaining software. With integrated productivity tools for things such as word processing, photo editing, email and voice/video over IP communications, their product promises to provide great value to the consumer. Their model is a bit different than the big cloud computing players, as instead of going directly to the consumer, ViaCube is working with broadband providers, such as Telcos and Cable MSOs.