I could see this being very useful for one or 2 things..like a special purpose media player that will play all movie/audio formats and allow more of the hardware power to go to the actual content instead of supporting a bloated OS.

Many years ago I wondered if it would be possible to have an "OS Chip" that was exponentially faster than a stardard hard drive for storing your OS on...it looks like we're getting there!

At the very least it will push Microsoft harder to improve boot times. I think microsoft is working hard to improve boot times, but harder works for me. Really it will all be moot once they perfect one of the super fast static memory technologies, as then the whole system can go from off to on almost instantly... measure in 10s of ms.

I think these options will be less attractive once SSDs go mainstream. Intel SSDs boot Vista in < 10 seconds. Windows 7 should be even quicker.

this is what i am wondering too. right now these SSD's are just too small and the speeds are still trivial. i see if SSD don't make it then the motherboard makers will in the future just put and expansion port on there motherboards for a flashchip just for the OS

One important thing you seem to have forgotten: Windows XP, a full-sized OS that can boot in ~20 seconds (from bootloader screen to login screen, at least on my Athlon 64 X2 system with old Barracuda 7200.7). Newer hardware should improve it and possibly break 10 sec barrier.

Shame that XP wasn't included in this Speed Table...

Conclusion: you don't need to choose between beefy Vista or crippled quickstart os'es. Just use XP (or some light Linux distro).

WTF?

Have you ever used a Mac? Open it up and it wakes up from sleep immediately! None of this boot sillyness. This has been how Mac OS X has been working since 2001. Why keep eating the MS dog food when you can eat subway???

@fuser: see the boot speed table for how fast Windows 7 can boot on a fast SSD like the one in the S101; even the team at Phoenix were impressed by it.

@Anonymous: a Windows system wakes from sleep just as quickly and has done for many years. However many people choose to hibernate or shut down to save power. The first time I shut the lid on a Mac and left it unplugged for a few days and expected it to still have power when I came back to it, I was infuriated that it had stayed in sleep and run down the battery. You're comparing apples and oranges (and I wouldn't personally call Subway a premium brand either!)

Mary Branscombe

Why not have the option to boot into Windows Mobile: that takes only a few seconds, and there are lots of apps (like MS Office compatible word processor) that open in another second or two; and the interface to WM is familiar to many PDA/smartphone users. The discontinued NEC MobilePro 900 and Psion Netbook Pro boot instantly, and Open Office's word processor or MS Word reader open instantly.

Does anyone know where to download Quicklook2