Deep Inside Rochester

My thoughts are presently stuck on the home PC market. I like having fast connected computers at home, but I have little interest in managing multiple systems. I would be extremely interested in a single-footprint, high-reliability solution that satisfied the whole family's computing needs. Cheap computers with multi-core chips will provide the capacity to do this; I'm just wondering what the software solution will be in the home computer market to take advantage of this capacity. Virtualization will play a part. I like the idea of multiple users, each running a dedicated image of the OS. Sounds a bit like VM, the IBM OS technology developed in the 1960's. Good ideas linger.