Looks like Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) is sparing no expense -- literally -- in bringing its free Google Spreadsheet and recently-acquired Writely word processing software to all customers who want both products. Both are free of charge, of course. The new "Google Docs & Spreadsheets" program is an extension of the web-based spreadsheet and word processing access Google already provides for free on the web. The new access for the combined word processing and spreadsheet is available here, and a Google account must be created or used.

Does this up the ante on Microsoft Corp (NASDAQ: MSFT) regarding its billion-dollar Office software franchise? Well, that's been said ever since Google purchased privately-help Writely earlier this year and later introduced the Google Spreadsheets program to all web users. My guess is that most Microsoft Office users use Powerpoint, Word and Excel more than any other piece of the Microsoft Office productivity package, so Google has two of those bases covered here -- and all you need is a web browser and Internet connection.

It's true that the intricate capabilities of Microsoft Office are far ahead of the relatively simple capabilities that Google's offerings allow, but for millions, what Google offers is enough and will suit then just fine. So, is this another stab at Microsoft by Google? You could say that, but I actually think it's an extension of the stab from earlier this year, and we'll see how Google progresses here. If the Internet search giant can create or buy a web-based presentation tool that emulates Microsoft Powerpoint, then things will really start to take shape.

I remember when I first got my hands on a copy of Microsoft Word. After years on WordPerfect, the creative soul in me was drunk on the pretty way you could view pages as pages, not words separated by dotted lines, the user-friendly layout, and oh, the fonts. But now, I get my kicks off in-line editing and next-gen blog software and AJAX (it's the wave of the future, dontcha know).

According to Jason Calacanis, CEO of Weblogs, Inc. and attendee at the D conference, Bill Gates is still in love with his software product. Jason writes that Bill "demoed a very cool version of Office that had a very clean -- but still packed -- GUI. One thing I noticed while the demo was going on was  that Gates was smiling like a kid on Christmas. As the audience oooed and ahhhhed you could see him get more excited and smile more. I thought to myself, 'wow, this guys been building the same pieces of software for over 20 years and he is still excited about it -- that's pretty cool.' "

Jason's other big takeaway: Microsoft is about to create "storage in the sky" for your MS documents. Now that would be truly useful and a worthy rival to Gmail and, if it wasn't imitated by Steve Jobs in a hurry, an Apple killer. In the world where everyone's mobile, you can't keep your data on one machine.