This is colossal:

Sinofsky also said that the Windows-on-ARM machines will come with several Office apps — Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote — that have been tuned to run in a very battery-efficient manner. But Sinofsky said that, although those applications will run in the traditional Windows desktop, they will be the only programs allowed to do so, other than components of Windows itself.

“There are no other compiled dekstop apps that are available,” Sinofsky told AllThingsD. All of the other apps for Windows on ARM will be the new-style “Metro” apps.

Windows 8 for Intel and AMD chips, by contrast, will be able to run all of the kinds of programs that have traditionally run on Windows, inside a Windows 7-like desktop environment.

Let's just repeat that: “There are no other compiled dekstop apps that are available”. It's going to be a totally new world on those tablets. Can it still be called "Windows"?

"If you've been using OneNote on your iPhone for a while, you already know how useful it is for keeping tabs on all of your busy life's tasks, commitments, ideas, and decisions. OneNote mobile apps are fantastic companions to the full OneNote experience.

Today, just in time for the holidays, we’re releasing OneNote 1.3 for iOS. Since the launch of OneNote for iPhone nearly a year ago, a recurring request from our customers has been for a version that can be used more easily on the iPad's larger screen. We're happy to announce that today's new release of OneNote for iOS devices includes a version that's tailored for the iPad."

One gets the impression that the OneNote team actually rather like the iPad. Who wins if it does well? Apple? Microsoft? Office? All of those?

"Google Docs just launched three more new features, marking their second day in a row of little but useful feature announcements. The new format painter tool lets you quickly copy style from one bit of text to another. Google has implemented its Fusion Tables as a document type, which enable dynamic and visual uses of data. Finally, Google has added drag-and-drop for images from the desktop directly into a drawing document in the browser window."<br />
<br />
For a free, or very cheap, product, it offers plenty.

"The University of Nebraska is mothballing its aging IBM Lotus Notes email and calendaring system in favor of Microsoft's Office 365 cloud platform for a number of reasons, including access to newer technology, greater flexibility, and operational savings.<br />
<br />
"And one other big reason--the university will receive $250,000 in givebacks from Microsoft to underwrite the switch under a little-known program Redmond calls Business Incentive Funds."<br />
<br />
Sometimes Microsoft has an odd approach to making a profit. How long will this take to pay back?

"A one-week examination of Office 365’s beta by the CRN Test Center finds much more than just a simple, online suite of productivity tools. Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) has turned the heart and soul of day-to-day computing over to the cloud in a manner that every enterprise, business or government entity can access in a meaningful way."<br />
<br />
Interesting.