industry researcher

The bad news for the mobile-device industry is that its sales in the first quarter were horrible. The good news is that smartphone sales are showing strength.

Those are some of the takeaways from a report by industry researcher Gartner released Wednesday. The report indicated that worldwide mobile-phone sales in the first quarter of this year were down 8.6 percent to 269.1 million units compared to the same quarter last year. But smartphone sales, which were 13.5 percent of all mobile-device sales, were up 12.7 percent.

Windows XP fans will get a boost, and many Windows customers are already looking beyond Vista to the upcoming Windows 7. That's the takeaway from reports this week about Microsoft's policy and a new survey by industry researcher ChangeWave.

Microsoft has told news media that when Windows 7 is released, it will allow volume-license users to downgrade to either the current Vista operating system or the older XP. There are also news reports that the software giant will allow Hewlett-Packard to continue selling XP on its computers for another year.

Release Candidate From Vista

Windows XP fans will get a boost, and many Windows customers are already looking beyond Vista to the upcoming Windows 7. That's the takeaway from reports this week about Microsoft's policy and a new survey by industry researcher ChangeWave.

Microsoft has told news media that when Windows 7 is released, it will allow volume-license users to downgrade to either the current Vista operating system or the older XP. There are also news reports that the software giant will allow Hewlett-Packard to continue selling XP on its computers for another year.

Release Candidate From Vista