Fans of the bookmark, password and tab sync service Xmarks have spoken, and the response was so encouraging that Xmarks is no longer dead-set on shutting down.

Xmarks announced on Monday that it can no longer sustain itself. Without interest from buyers, and no business model to support its 2 million non-paying customers, Xmarks set a shut down date of January 10, 2011.

Closing Xmarks would leave those users without a cross-browser, cross-platform solution for syncing bookmarks and saving tabs. Their best bet would be browser-specific alternatives for Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari.

But the anguished cries from Xmarks' devoted users raised possibilities of a bailout. In a blog post, Xmarks Chief Executive James Joaquin said he's received "a lot of credible interest from companies interested in acquiring the Xmarks assets and taking over the service." In other words, someone could scrape the Xmarks technology, possibly using it in a different product or under another brand name.

More: http://www.pcworld.com/article/206687/