I don't have any inside info, however as a long-time IS person and Apple watcher, I think:
(1) Apple probably released Boot Camp a bit sooner than they might have because of the hype and the contest to find a way to do it. Apple realized that it benefits them to have a surer, "Apple-approved" way of doing it.
(2) Leopard will nearly certainly NOT have virtualization built in. Apple is going for a production version of Boot Camp as integral to the OS. I don't think Apple is ready for virtualization yet. It does take a considerable amount of thought and time to develop that technology. So, if Parallel gets it to market in a stable product, they should have several years of good revenue from it before Apple attempts to repeat it. Indeed, Apple may not even want to do that at all -- at least initially -- and decide to leave that functionality entirely to them.
I don't agree with the article at all!
(1) This appeals to the markets as well as to big shops, since now the hardware can "fit in" with the predominant OS. The potential counts for more than how much it will actually be used in those places.
(2) This makes avid gamers likely Mac owners for the first time.
(3) A dual-boot system is still an awkward, clunky platform in real use. It provides some flexibility, but is not a really highly efficient system. Much better is adding the next step of simultaneously booting both partititions, and having a hot-key to jump from one to the other. Hopefully, there would also be an easy way to transfer data from one to the other.
(4) In practice, who in their right mind would want a Win OS to collect malware and viruses? The thought just gives me shivers! The whole point of using OS X is to avoid those horrors, so only very limited use of Win OS would be advisable.
Virtualization: Running Any OS Within OS X
Boot Camp: Apple's Insanely Good Idea?