By JOHN MURRELL

Looks like we're back to the war movie metaphor for the Microsoft-Yahoo imbroglio. The romantic comedy angle (see "'Sleepless in Sunnyvale': Amusing actors hobbled by weak script") may just have been a soldier's flashback, or maybe the war part is the flashback -- it'll all get worked out in the editing. Anyway, we're at that tense moment in the plot when, depending on the subgenre, the jungle drums have fallen silent or all the birds around the foxhole have suddenly stopped chirping. Something's coming, and the only thing to do is wait in dread at the fearsome prospect of a hyped-up Steve Ballmer in full monkey-boy mode charging out of the darkness. Geez, I kinda scared myself there.

Microsoft's Saturday deadline for Yahoo's board to surrender passed without a peep from either side, and the unnerving silence continues as we await Microsoft's next move. With the help of a couple of corporate attorney friends, Mark Andreessen gives a good summary of where things could go from here:

* The promised launch of hostilities, involving a tender offer made directly to Yahoo shareholders (complicated a bit by Yahoo's poison pill), a proxy fight to seize control of the board (inconveniently for Yahoo, the entire board is up for election), or both.

* A sweetened deal -- maybe making the offer all cash -- to resolve things without bloodshed.

* Microsoft walks away, at least for the moment, Yahoo's stock price tumbles to where it was before the takeover offer, and Yahoo faces a future full of shareholder litigation. And then Microsoft comes back ... or doesn't.

* Yahoo's board decides it doesn't have the stomach for a fight and gives in.

* A white knight rides out of the mist and carries Yahoo off to a beautiful castle.

Right now, the betting favors hostilities, and the main question is whether those bunkered in Sunnyvale will be shocked and awed into peace talks when it comes.
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Q  U  O  T  E  D

"So I asked a large group of people - about 30 - and here is the grand total who knew what Twitter was: 0; FriendFeed: 0; Widget: 1 (but she thought it was one of the units used in a business class study); Facebook: Everyone I asked knew about it and about half had an account, although different people used it differently.

"In other words, confirming for me what I wrote last week about the intense obsession with the hottest new services like Twitter and FriendFeed in the echo chamber of Silicon Valley, and how no one else cares yet."

-- BoomTown's Kara Swisher polls guests at an East Coast wedding

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And for a few bucks more, we'll even throw in Windows 95: The slings, arrows, snubs and insults just continue to land on poor old Windows Vista, the least-loved best-selling software in history. The latest is the decision by the three top PC makers to help their customers take advantage of an escape hatch in Microsoft's OS program in a way that will keep Windows XP available, in a fashion, beyond the June 10 deadline for the end of retail sales. Both Vista Business and Vista Ultimate (but not Vista Home Premium or Basic) come with what turns out to be a valuable little feature -- "downgrade rights." Buyers of machines with those versions can legally wipe the brand new OS off their machines and retreat to the familiar comforts of Windows XP Professional.

With their interest in keeping their Vista-shy customers satisfied, Microsoft's hurt feelings be damned, HP, Lenovo and Dell are now all offering product packages that include the downgrade option. HP and Lenovo will include an XP Pro recovery disk with qualifying systems, while Dell, lobbied heavily by its customers, will do the work for you, first installing Vista on your new machine, then cleaning it off and putting on XP, all in a little charade that lets Microsoft keep counting up the new Vista sales even among those who refuse to use it.

Wonder if this counts as the kind of feedback Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer wants before he wakes up smarter (see "What do you want, Steve? You want us to beg? OK, we're begging").
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Cray tells AMD it's time to start seeing other people: Even in these troubled times for Advanced Micro Devices (see "AMD lays out new multi-corpse roadmap"), the semiconductor maker could still take some modicum of pride knowing that among the 10 most powerful supercomputers at the moment, three are built by Cray, which has used AMD chips exclusively for six years. Now the company is in danger of losing even that little bragging point. Today, Cray announced a deal with AMD's larger nemesis, Intel, to work together on its future supercomputer models. "The combination of this industry leadership and technical strength will allow (high-performance computing) users to take advantage of future Xeon and other Intel processor technologies," said Patrick Gelsinger, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Digital Enterprise Group. "Together we will enable fundamental and historical problems of science and industry to be solved." Except, perhaps, AMD's problems.
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Off topic: Animal tech: an orangutan who has grasped the concept of spear fishing, and insects that use plants like telephones. Also, an interesting read from Clay Shirky on the cognitive surplus that's about to be loosed into participatory media.
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