Conversely, virtualization allows you to keep older server hardware on-line longer and less expensively - you can avoid renewing service contracts and just run servers till they die since you can just vmotion the VMs to another physical server when the time comes. The only downside is per-CPU licensing for VMWare which may be way cheaper per app/VM on newer hardware. (More VMs per CPU license)

That's some fine trollin' Lou. The product described in TFA sounds more like a competitor to VMWare VDI in which case the proper "b-b-but UNIX was doing it 20 years ago!" response is to bring up the magnificence that is X11.

IT departments all over the world do what you describe with Windows boxen every day. You can store data centrally and have users work off of standard images, you can use several tools to migrate profiles and settings between PCs, you can use roaming profiles (OK, I admit the last one is a joke)

On the other hand, there's still no definitive system for managing Linux desktops comparable to AD/Group Policy. And interoperability in heterogeneous environments is fun too (e.g. winbind randomly dying or being broken by updates, Gnome's had a bug for almost a year that prevents listing of shares on SMB/CIFS servers that require authentication)

"AIX-- doesn't much care for the OS, but loves the jackboots. "
http://www.gnu.org/fun/jokes/know.your.sysadmin.html