I posted a couple weeks ago about an effort at Hewlett-Packard to develop a lightweight, battery-conscious operating system to enable users to access some of their most commonly used applications without having to boot up into Vista, a time-consuming and resource-intensive process that seemed hardly worth the trouble.

Now it appears that Dell is moving the same direction, developing a Linux based subsystem for new laptops dubbed "Latitude ON" which will allow rapid access to common applications, outside the main operating system on the laptop, which promises multi-day battery life in the bargain.

At this point, few details are available regarding either the HP or the Dell effort, but if those "frequently used applications" include a web browser and an e-mail client... I imagine a lot of people will start weighing the pretty bells and whistles against the increased battery life, and spending a lot of time not using Vista at all. Enough of that, and they'll start to wonder why they are paying for it... not a good thing for Microsoft.