HTML5 roundup: access a virtualized desktop from your browser with VMware.
I hope its obvious that this (VMware WSX, see link above) makes Office on the tablet even less attractive. At the very least it will hold the price of Office on single purpose tablets under $100 (prediction).
What will change? People will demand virtualization in their daily computing and corporations will be incentivized to deploy virtualization in order to increase the utilization of their Office licencing costs. Microsoft will respond by having specific licensing for virtual presentation of Office for coorporations and to a lesser extent, consumers. Any plans to increase the volume of Office licensing with tablet versions (and keep selling PC versions, showing lower growth) will be bracketted by a lower price for the new opportunity which will make shareholders unhappy and change the fortunes of key executives.
In general Office is no longer a high growth business. High value, but not high growth. I know, I know; that has been the case for a while, but that is even more so in this business cycle.
