We recently reported that sales of Windows netbooks are outnumbering sales of Linux netbooks by more than 9 to 1! This information was according to leading vendors, most notably Acer, who given their 38% leading share in netbook sales are as reliable a source as anyone for this kind of information.

According to Mobile Computing News though, Microsoft is still taking Linux seriously – at least as far as netbooks are concerned. Perhaps not content with an estimated share of over 70% in the netbook market, they have come up with a plan to work their way on to even more netbooks.

We all know that Windows Vista and netbooks are not a good combination. Vista is generally too powerful and subsequently too sluggish on netbooks, demanding resources the majority of netbooks don’t have. This is why Windows XP is used with most netbook releases, but XP is not as efficient as the Linux OS. Microsoft has shrewdly opted to solve this problem by optimizing its new Windows 7 operating system to run smoothly on netbooks.

Windows 7 is scheduled for a full release in 2009 and is expected to be a lot better in terms of CPU usage and system memory usage compared to Vista. With that in mind, things look pretty grim for Linux, which could find itself truly demoted to a place on the netbooks of the niche, hardcore consumer.