Google Releases Google Apps Plugin for Microsoft Office

Google has released a plug in for Microsoft Office called "Cloud Connect" that allows users of Office to utilize the document management and collaboration features of Google Apps.

This is an interesting development in the Google vs. Microsoft battle. Microsoft's current document management solution, SharePoint, is cumbersome and expensive compared to Google Apps, and isn't really a true "cloud" solution. Until now, one of the big drawbacks of Google Apps was that the word processing and spreadsheet tools weren't as full featured as Microsoft's offerings. There were also compatibility issues when sharing documents between Microsoft Office and Google Apps users.

By integrating Google Apps functionality into the Microsoft Office platform, Google has provided a solution to this problem without having to re-invent the office suite wheel.

Exciting news for those of us who like to use the best of both worlds!

Big Patch Tuesday Next Week

Microsoft has announced that they'll be releasing patches on Tuesday to address 22 security holes. Unfortunately they will not yet be fixing the bug I discussed in my last post.

You may want to plan to do a manual Windows update Tuesday morning so that you don't experience slowness or reboots during the day.