Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is preparing to launch an application for Microsoft Office, which would be available on the iPad in 2012. Microsoft is reportedly going to make Office for the iPad only $10. This about the same price that Apple charges for applications that they sell on the App Store including Pages, Numbers, and Keynote.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) is expected to launch the first beta of Office 15 in January according to WinRumors. Microsoft Office 15 is currently the code-name for the next version of Office. It is expected to be showcased at CES 2012 alongside Windows 8 beta.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has launched a plug-in that resolves sync conflicts between Microsoft Office and Google Docs. The plugin is called Cloud Connect and it is available for free of charge. When you edit a document in Microsoft Word, it will automatically sync it to Google Docs every time you hit Save. I think that this is an awesome feature.

Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) has hit a major web milestone. Microsoft has surpassed 20 million users for Office Web Apps, which was released this past summer. Office Web Apps include Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

The following events took place over the last year and a half: Microsoft made a bid to buy out Yahoo!  But Yahoo! turned it down and signed a deal with Google instead.  The advertising industry and the government disapproved of the Yahoo! and Google deal.

Recently Google announced that they are developing a new operating system called Chrome OS.  And then Microsoft said that the new version of Office will have major cloud support.  Late last month, Microsoft and Yahoo! signed a search deal that would give Yahoo! additional revenue and Microsoft the exclusive rights to power Yahoo!’s search engine with their own.

Clearly Google is not happy with this deal.  This is why the Mountain View based search engine company decided to step up their marketing efforts against Microsoft Office.  Google’s campaign is called Going Google.

Google will be releasing several advertisements about why around 3,000 organizations that are signing up for Google Apps every day.  On the billboards, there will be a new message about Google Apps shown every day for a month.

The billboard ads will be placed on four major U.S. highways.  Those highways are the 101 in Northern California, the West Side Highway in New York, the Mass Pike in Boston, and Ike in Chicago.

Google is also encouraging users on Google Apps to tweet their stories about using the service with the #gonegoogle hashtag.

[via TechCrunch]

“Melissa” was the first virus that spread through e-mail.  It was created by David Smith who was 31 in 1999 when he built it.  The virus turned 10 years old today and it caused about $80 million in damages and infected one million PCs.

The subject line of the virus was “Here is that document you asked for … don’t show anyone else;-)” and it contained an infected file called LIST.doc.  The document contained passwords to 80 pornographic websites.  The virus spread through Microsoft Word 97, Word 2000, Excel 97, Excel 2000, Excel 2003, Outlook 97, and Outlook 98.

There were about four variations of the virus.  Smith was sentenced 20 months in prison and was charged $5,000.  Smith was also told to stay clear of computer networks and the Internet without court authorization.

[via TGDaily]