Given that they just announced they will soon be moving away from Windows, if the OS was a factor in this leak (unlikely, but Windows stability was cited as a reason for leaving) it would be an argument for leaving Windows sooner, not for staying the course.
No, it is Intel passing lessons it learned with Apple on to Microsoft. You are correct that Intel wants to catch up in the low power area – some of that is hardware (was already happening long before Microsoft got serious) and some of that is the OS (something they worked on with Apple).
A couple of years back Intel came flat out and admitted that Apple had told them to focus on power or they would take their processor business elsewhere. This is just Intel passing these old lessons on to Microsoft.
