In light of all the brouhaha today surrounding speculation Microsoft might extend XP's availability past the announced June 30 cutoff, sources say Dell plans to continue offering XP on new systems until 2010. By taking advantage of an option in the Vista licensing agreement, systems sold with Vista Business or Vista Ultimate can legally downgrade to Windows XP. To make this easier, Dell plans to offer the option to have XP preinstalled on its Precision and OptiPlex computers. Users would then need to contact Microsoft to obtain a product key. Microsoft is obligated to honor that request as part of the licensing agreement. This could conceivably allow companies to continue using XP right on up to the expected release of Windows 7, bypassing Vista altogether.