A system, including apparatuses and methods, for operating a
subscription-based virtual computing services provider and for providing
virtual computing services to subscribers thereto. The services provider
enrolls subscribers to receive subscriber-selectable virtual computing
services and provides such services to subscribers in exchange for the
payment of a subscription fee based, at least in part, on the
particularly selected computing services. The virtual computing services
are provided through a communication network and accessible via
subscriber devices having different degrees of robustness and via
subscriber-selected user interfaces. A virtual non-volatile storage is
allocated to each subscriber in a subscriber-selected storage capacity.
The virtual non-volatile storage may be used for the storage and
execution of software applications therein and/or for the storage of
uploadable or downloadable data therein. Subscribers may configure their
virtual non-volatile storage with a subscriber-selected operating system
and/or software application(s) that may be provided and maintained by the
services provider.