Microsoft is vehemently denying that Intel has derailed the Xbox schedule by designing dud motherboards for it. The claim came in a research note from Thomas Weisel Partners yesterday morning, which said that several sources said a flaw in the boards could knock back production by three to four weeks.

Microsoft responded by denying there was any flaw, and insisted that Xbox was still on schedule for launch on 8th November. The Weisel note itself ruled out the possibility of a delay anyway, saying it felt there was enough slack in the build schedule for Microsoft to make up for lost time. The outfit says Microsoft intends to have 600-800,000 units ready by launch date, and 1.5 million units produced by the end of this year.

That of course depends on the flaw - if there is a flaw - being fixed fast, and Chipzilla, Microsoft or any of the other component suppliers not goofing. But so far, small earthquake, not many dead... ®