Many people have their own unique preferences when it comes to using software, and historically that has presented various challenges such as compatibility issues across different platforms, and formatting inconsistencies when opening documents in different versions of word processing applications, among other challenges.

Google today announced the availability of a new product, Google Cloud Connect, in beta, that will make it easier for people using Google Docs and Microsoft Office to collaborate on working with documents.

The application seamlessly works between Google Docs and Microsoft Office to synchronize changes to documents made by different editors in close to real-time.

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The world’s largest software-maker, Microsoft Corporation, has released the latest version of its Office productivity suite for Mac computers.

Office for Mac 2011 is the biggest upgrade for Mac computers since the company launched the productivity suite for the competing operating system.

This version of Office for Mac finally includes Outlook, the popular personal information management app for managing your calendar, emails, contacts, and notes all from one app with syncing capabilities.

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Microsoft Corp. today revealed new information about it’s upcoming version of Office for Mac.

One of the most important additions to Office 2010 Mac is the addition of the first Outlook application for Mac. We firstly reported on August 13, 2009, that Microsoft had confirmed Outlook would be released for Mac. Microsoft had released Entourage as the substitute to Outlook, but it lacked many wanted business centric features such as Exchange support that were found only in the PC version of Outlook.

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We first reported on August 12, 2009 that a Texas-based court ruled in favor of i4i Corp, a Toronto-based firm, that ordered Microsoft to cease selling its popular Word program because of alleged patent infringement related to custom XML editing (U.S. Patent Number 5,787,449). The Texas-court in that ruling also fined Microsoft $240 million.

At that time, Microsoft spokesman Kevin Kutz said, “We believe the evidence clearly demonstrated that we do not infringe and that the i4i patent is invalid,” and said the company would appeal.

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Microsoft today announced the company would launch Outlook 2010 for Mac.

The announcement was made by Eric Wilfrid, GM of Microsoft’s Mac Business Unit, and said today, “We’re building on the most modern OS X framework to make Outlook beautiful, to make it high performance, and to make it well integrated with the operating system.”

Microsoft is building Outlook 2010 to work cross-platform with the Windows version, allowing users to share information and sync across both platforms.

Microsoft is also expected to release an update to Entourage, the substitute Outlook information management system for Mac.

Outlook 2010 for Mac will be packaged with Office 2010 for Mac, and is expected to arrive late 2010.

On July 21, 2009, Microsoft released a service pack update for Office Mac.

A Texas-based court has just ruled in favor of a Toronto-based company, i4i Corp., in a patent dispute with Microsoft Corp.

The judge has ordered Microsoft to stop selling its popular document processing software Word 2003 and 2007 versions in the U.S. after Microsoft was found willingly infringing on patents obtained by i4i in 1998.

The judge also ordered Microsoft to pay US $290 million in damages to i4i, and has given Microsoft 60 days to comply.

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The world’s largest software maker, Microsoft, today unveiled its latest document editing productivity suit, Office 2010.

The new version includes many enhancements, including enhanced security, real-time collaboration with co-workers, new styles, among other UI enhancement.

For the first time, Microsoft is making available Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote, with many popular features you would normally use on a PC to the web using Ajax.

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