What a fiendish, old-fashioned, despicable journalist trick this would be if true. You'd dial the number, then keep the line open while you encouraged the whole of the web to blitz it, thus scooping all of your rivals. If true, that is. A quick turn through yesterday's IDG output produces a story in Computerworld that might be the smoking pistol, but the piece doesn't actually publish the phone number.

It points to the place where the phone number is published. Which is the, er, Microsoft site. It says here: "Reporters, editors and analysts wanting more information about this announcement should join Jim Allchin, group vice president of the Platforms Group at Microsoft, for a conference call on Wednesday, May 9 at 8:30 a.m. PDT. They can join the conference by calling (800) 399-0081; the conference call name is 'Microsoft Windows XP.'"