VirtualBox/Sun xVM???
Please, for those of us who would like your take, put xVM into perspective. Since you brought up Intel's description, and the article is heavily VMWare, please say something about what you think of VirtualBox.
For example, years ago, I tried and used Win4Lin to run w98 inside Mandrake/Mandriva. I got tired of w4l's kernel issues and their breaking of my stabilized Mdk setups. They were never synching kernels on a distro release cycle, so it was highly burdensome for me if I chose to upgrade Mdk out of step with w4l.
In 2004, and 2005 I tried VMWare, and it wasn't quite what I wanted in user experience of the GUI. I stayed with w4l until my laptop finally died and my desktops were long in the tooth.
Later, in 2007 when I needed to go to at least wxp due to some CAD software advances over what I'd had in 2003, I bought a new 17" laptop with 2GB of RAM and found VirtualBox to be stellar. On my new 2nd laptop, in 2009, I continued on with VBox. It is small, light, and usually for me, using the PEUL version vs the OSE version, I can do what I want in PCLOS: surf and write in Linux, and use VBox to give me access to my old, nice Lotus Smartsuited apps (mainly Approach and WordPro and 1-2-3, but not Organizer and Freelance), my CAD and related CAD apps.
I personally have no need (and no desire whatsoever) to cloud-link my apps. I don't need RDP or similar features.