Server side appium to increase test efficiency

I learned about server side appium while talking to testdroid sales folks at a conference. Instead of sending each and every JSON wire protocol request to saucelabs cloud, over HTTP through internet, they route the commands through intranet/locally. So essentially appium acts as on localhost and you would see performance comparable to your local machines and actual devices.

This concept is explained with more diagrams and steps at -http://testdroid.com/news/appium-testdroid-cloud-2

This should increase the efficiency and reliability of appium tests perhaps the reason for Amazon using the same approach when they released their own mobile cloud.