Visual Studio Online, the end of the developer workstation?

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Last week Microsoft released Project Monaco which is essentially Visual Studio as a service.  An IDE in the cloud.  Visual Studio has long been regarded as one of the premier development environments for Windows based and Web development.  It integrates perfectly with the entire Microsoft stack and its debugging features are second to none.  It has also been regarded as a pretty intensive install.  If you are going to develop any type of software using it, a powerful machine is generally recommended.  For those creating games or graphically intensive applications this is a requirement.
For developers this means a laptop weighing at least 5 pounds was mandatory.  The light weight Ultrabooks like the MacBook Air, or tablets like  an iPad or the Surface 2 are normally considered “extra” machines because you couldn’t possibly do serious development on them.  That is not to say it can’t be done, it would just take longer and be more complicated.  Windows Azure along with Visual Studio Online is on the path to change all of that.  Visual Studio Online not only brings the Visual Studio development platform as a service but also Team Foundation Server for version control and a build system all as a service.  Now development using Visual Studio on a tablet or Ultrabook is possible and you do not need to remote into another machine to do it.  Developers can look at a new Surface 2, Nokia Lumia tablet, iPad or Android tablet and see it as a real development machine.
But what are the limitations?
Project Monaco is still in Preview, so there are quite a few.  I’m not recommending developers throw their laptop out the window and start coding on their tablet.  Currently the IDE portion of Visual Studio Online is only supported when working on Azure websites.  Another limitation is you can not create solutions with Visual Studio Online.  The solutions you work on must be uploaded to your Visual Studio Online account.  So technically you still need a desktop installation of Visual Studio in order to take full advantage of Visual Studio Online.  Currently the two work in tandem and Visual Studio Online is not yet a replacement for Visual Studio.  Microsoft has outlined pricing for a more feature rich version of Visual Studio Online, so you can see it becoming a viable replacement for the desktop application sometime in the future.
Whether the desktop version of Visual Studio remains a requirement, you must work in a hybrid type of environment, or you migrate entirely to Visual Studio Online the technology powering Project Monaco is impressive and the ability to work on projects, develop and build solutions in the cloud is a welcome addition to any developer!