That is confusing. Article on hosted vs cloud: http://www.itnewsafrica.com/2011/04/cloud-vs-hosted-services/.
NetIdeas hosted access (remote servers running the PDMlink program with your data) is provided through a secure website connection that runs through the Internet to servers located in a remote location. In Creo, you link this server to Creo for seamless access to vault data.
Also....Two ways to use NetIdeas (http://www.netideasinc.com/): 1) Your own company vault location running on a single instance of the program that is shared with other companies (limits setup time/costs but limits customization) and 2) an Enterprise install where you have much more setup control over how the program interacts with your users. We have the shared instance setup and have been provided sufficient flexibility to work with our procedures.