The drive to create faster, cooler, and more energy-efficient CPUs has led to a diversification of processor architectures recently, with the venerable x86 facing competition it hasn’t seen in years.  If this trend continues, it will assure Ubuntu and other Linux distributions a substantial advantage over Microsoft, which so far has announced no plans to build Windows for chipsets that are not x86-compatible.

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Rumor has it that Microsoft has arbitrarily limited its definition of “netbook” to machines with screens smaller than 10.2 inches.  This move is presumably intended to force more consumers to pay for the full version of Windows 7, rather than buying the less expensive (and less usable) “Starter” or “Home Basic” editions.  But this strategy could backfire by driving sales of Linux-based netbooks, leaving Microsoft out in the cold.

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tuxradar.com has published a well-done series of benchmarking tests comparing Ubuntu Intrepid and Jaunty with Windows Vista and 7, both on 32- and 64-bit platforms.  The results suggest that–surprise–Windows 7 is not noticeably faster than Vista.  Moreover, it’s much slower than Ubuntu.

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Although I don’t plan on using Windows 7 unless threatened with violence, I thought it would be interesting to see what Microsoft’s pushing these days as state-of-the-art technology.  Many of the new features planned for the next release of Windows, however, seem more like catch-up than innovation.

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