Interesting that another PC vendor would start using EFI, especially prior to Vista SP1 shipment (which will support EFI officially.)
The main thing about EFI is that OS X86 can run a lot better on a machine that has real EFI, because you can use the real EFI kernel, which makes *everything* run more smoothly.

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I'm guessing this is the reason that Apple had patented that WGA-style checking system to make sure that OS X is running on actual Apple hardware only. I'm sure it would make it much more simple working with pretty much the same internal hardware (now supporting EFI) to get Leopard up and running.

As for Gateway doing this before SP1, there might be a feature that allows for PC BIOS emulation to still support older versions of Windows prior to Vista SP1, as well as some older open source operating systems that still are not including EFI support. PC manufacturers are probably rolling out the system with EFI to be ready for when Vista SP1 rolls out.