Sep. 6--Microsoft Corp. plans to deploy its own customer-service representatives at retailers like Best Buy and Circuit City to help people with their PC purchases.

The software giant said Friday that plans to have 155 "Microsoft gurus" in U.S. stores by the end of the year and expand the program based on its success.

The gurus will be answering questions about PCs and Microsoft products, as well as giving demonstrations of how the company's products work together.

The move is likely to strike up comparisons with Apple Inc., which runs "genius bars" in its stores to answer questions about Macs and iPods.

Ballooning defaults

More than 4 million American homeowners with a mortgage, a record 9 percent, were behind on payments or in foreclosure at the end of June, the Mortgage Bankers Association said Friday.

But the source of trouble has shifted from borrowers with poor credit to those who had solid credit but took out exotic loans with ballooning payments.

"The problem that policymakers and Wall Street once assured us was 'contained' to subprime mortgages has proven to be anything but," said Mike Larson, an analyst with Weiss Research.

The

trouble is concentrated in a handful of states, the worst being California and Florida.

Oil price falls

Oil prices sank to a five-month low Friday as a jump in the U.S. unemployment rate to 6.1 percent signaled traders that Americans might keep paring back their energy use to save money.

"There's been a terrific amount of growing concern about the outlook for demand globally," said John Kilduff , an analyst at MF Global. "Today's employment report emboldened that concern."

Light, sweet crude for October delivery fell $1.66 to settle at $106.23 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange -- its lowest settlement since early April.

In Tulsa, the most common price of regular-grade gasoline remained at $3.45 a gallon.

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