Did the netbook improve Windows 7's performance?

Arnie87 writes: One Microsoft Way has an interesting article suggesting that the reason Microsoft is focusing so much on speed with Windows 7 is due to the whopping sales of netbooks. The article concludes by saying: "If you plan on adopting Windows 7, you have the netbook to be thankful for, because Vista's successor would be a very different beast if Microsoft had less motivation to pursue performance."