Yes, it's definitely a first step in that direction :)

But please, don't make us wait for 1.0 until you have first class Windows support (your 1.0 goals do say 'all major operating systems')...

The first step there is boot2docker - http://boot2docker.io/ - for OSX and Windows. I don't think Docker 1.0 will have native server support for either operating system but I'd be very surprised if it wasn't possible in a near term subsequent release.

I'm not sure what tech you'd use on Windows for that - there's no container-like concepts available on Windows as far as I know.

Windows is kinda-sorta halfway there through a combination of window stations, integrity levels, and file and registry virtualization. I'm guessing any result in this space would inevitably look pretty similar to ThinApp (http://www.vmware.com/products/thinapp/features.html), which is probably as close as you can get.

There's virtualization, of course. Client HyperV apparently comes with Windows 8 now[1].

Obviously it's a lot heavier than a container-like system though.

[1] http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/windows-and-office/get-star...