Microsoft Developer

According to WHOIS Microsoft as of Tuesday owned office.com, a domain name that it will presumably use in its cloud defense against Google Apps et al and replace the less streamline office.microsoft.com when it come time to field its lightweight Office Web versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote.

So far it's not saying. It could have picked it up just to get it off the market or prevent any confusion.

Goodness only knows what Microsoft paid for it.

The URL used to take you to a Belgian start-up called ContactOffice that's doing virtual office tools like calendars, unified messaging and whatnot, but Robin Wauters, writing in the know-it-all TechCrunch, says he knows - because he used to consult for ContactOffice - that it really belonged to a "US resident," who let ContactOffice use it on revenue-sharing basis while he bided his time waiting to make a killing.

ContactOffice is moving to contactoffice.com but for the moment office.com still goes to a ContactOffice transition message.