If you're a business customer of Dell, you might have to purchase Vista with your PC, but that doesn't mean you have to use it. Today, Dell is trying a new way to satisfy both business users' wants and Microsoft's licensing requirements.

A recent revision to Dell's policy for business PC customers lets them take full and open advantage of an apparent loophole in Microsoft's operating system licensing, though they'll pay full price for it: Assuming Microsoft goes forth with its plan to discontinue sale of all versions of Windows XP after June 30, Dell will still enable its business customers who purchase Windows Vista Business or Vista Professional to exercise certain "downgrade rights" and have Windows XP Professional installed instead.

Three of the four cable partners in the Pivot joint venture that was intended to combine cellular- with cable television service is apparently falling apart.

The silent exit was almost the polar opposite of the fanfare that surrounded the service's launch in November 2005. At that time, the group announced a landmark 20-year deal, exclusive to Sprint for a decade.

If the software industry truly is to transcend the PC level and start an entirely new economy on a Web platform, then it doesn't appear any one player will have an automatic, native advantage. Yahoo is gambling it will be one of those players.

There are four centers of gravity emerging in the complex and semi-defined social Web services field, where the application platform is moved from the local or company network to the Web. The proprietors at these four points include Microsoft, whose Live Mesh concept was given more definition just two days ago. Then there's Adobe, which is constructing a Web services platform around Flash using AIR. Also there is Google, whose tenacity alone is testament to its formidability.

A report from analysts at ThinkPanmure indicates AT&T will be releasing its own femtocell system with hardware provided by UK-based ip.access Ltd.

UK-based picocell and femtocell infrastructure vendor ip.access Ltd, whose Oyster 3G won the 2007 GSM Association "Best Radio Access Product" award, will reportedly be providing AT&T with seven million femtocell access points. Though it has not been disclosed if it will be the same Oyster model or a newer device, they will reportedly cost around $100.

Linux and Unix software from Microsoft? That will be one of the upshots of Microsoft's proposed buyout of Fast Search & Transfer, Microsoft officials said today. But that doesn't mean you'll see Microsoft software shifting platforms.

"You shouldn't expect to see SharePoint running on Unix," according to Kirk Koenigsbauer, general manager of Microsoft's SharePoint Business Group.

Skype is looking to expand its mobile offerings and is opening up a public beta for its mobile software.

About 50 different phone models are compatible with the Java-based software. It allows users to chat, show their online presence, and receive both calls from other users as well as through SkypeIn.

Citigroup's Richard Gardner and Yeechang Lee said in a research note Thursday that they expect Apple to introduce the 3G iPhone during Job's keynote at the Worldwide Developers Conference.

That date makes some degree of sense, considering WWDC is also a likely candidate for the introduction of the final release of iPhone Firmware 2.0. Jobs speaks at the beginning of each conference, this year being held from June 9-13.

An April 15 vote by Milpitas, California's City Council was 4-0 in favor of transferring the Earthlink Wi-Fi assets back to the city. In 30 days, Milpitas will be the among the first cities to assume ownership of Earthlink's network.

Earthlink's Milpitas launch took place in December 2006, opening the ten square mile mesh network of Tropos Wi-Fi routers to residents for rates raging from $3.95 an hour to $21.95 a month. This service will no longer be offered once Milpitas has assumed control, and total coverage will be stripped down to a size that will not present operating costs that are too restrictive.

In the US, 83 percent of consumers plan to keep their landline phones, even if they also own mobile phones. But on a worldwide basis, the cell phone market is now showing its fastest growth since 2006, according to new research.

New analysts' surveys making the rounds late this week may not entirely conflict with one another, though they are presenting different pictures of complex patterns on the topic of mobile phone adoption.

LG Electronics has launched its new Secret line in the UK -- a sleek, stylish new camera phone with a shiny carbon fiber casing whose emphasis is not only on "smarts" but also on "trends."

Originally leaked several weeks ago, the Secret follows the LG Chocolate and LG Shine phone models in the Black Label Series, which has helped boost LG's phone sales with more than 25 million sales worldwide.

Few American companies would write off the assets from a losing product as a one-time charge; the result might be disastrous, even suicidal. But in Asian business, defeat can be treated honorably when it's taken as a whole.

History will record, perhaps honorably but not without a note of astonishment, that Toshiba was willing to absorb the full blow of its huge gamble in HD DVD, as a one-time charge for its 2007 fiscal year, ending in March.

It appears that PA Semi's chip business may not have a place in Apple's future plans, which could spell trouble for the chipmaker's clients, including the Defense Department.

An EETimes report cites sources close to companies affected by the merger in reporting that Apple seems more interested in PA Semi's intellectual property and development side, rather than its chips.

Nintendo said Friday it is confident in consumer demand for its two consoles, thus making a price cut unnecessary at least during 2008.

Both Sony and Microsoft have already cut prices on their current consoles in an effort to keep sales up. Nintendo has so far continually rebuffed calls to similarly cut prices for its own systems.

According to French Web metrics firm XiTi, Mozilla Firefox continues its unabated growth in popularity, reaching around 29% usage share in Europe overall in March.

Microsoft Internet Explorer saw its usage share begin to drop in the at the end of 2005, roughly one year after Firefox 1.0 was released and began to be embraced internationally. In 2006, the XiTi Monitor reported Firefox had continued its market share increase to around 23-25%.

If Microsoft doesn't "make progress" in its Yahoo buyout bid by this weekend, the Redmond company will move on to options that include taking the offer to Yahoo shareholders and dropping the acquisition offer entirely, said Chris Liddell, senior VP and CFO at Microsoft, in a conference call late Thursday.

"[But] Microsoft is focused on the online ad market," due to industry predictions of major growth in this space over the next few years, Liddell told financial analysts and journalists during Microsoft's third quarter financial call.