Can Windows 7 beat Linux on power management?
According to Clarke, Finch noted, Linux netbooks could face greater challenges from Windows 7 in terms of battery life and power consumption than it did from XP (presumably given the same Intel Atom processor as opposed to more power-efficient ARM-based processors). He was also said to have stated that Linux still suffers from offering support for fewer major applications than does Windows. A quick straw poll by Clarke of the primarily Linux-focused conference delegates revealed a belief that application availability was a bigger issue for Linux netbooks than power consumption and battery life. “They believed Linux netbooks should ship with Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, and Pidgin,” writes Clarke. “After that, there was a big fall off.” According to Clarke, generating consumer demand in brick-and-mortar stores was widely considered to be the biggest challenge for Linux netbooks. Here, Linux is fighting an uphill battle against Microsoft’s channel clout. “Microsoft is famous for hav
