Microsoft announced today that it has mostly wrapped up its acquisition of the Internet communications company Skype. The $8.5 billion deal has received approval from the major regulators, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and the European Union, although a few holdouts remain--Russia, Ukraine, Serbia and Taiwan--which are expected to fall into line shortly.

The Cloud is falling! The Cloud is falling! No, seriously. It keeps falling. If it's not Google Docs or Gmail, it's Microsoft's Office 365, Hotmail, and SkyDrive. The issues encountered over the past week or so - and the sporadic-but-too-frequent-to-ignore outages before that -- raise serious questions about just how dependable Cloud-based services really are.

Google Apps is firmly established as the primary competitor to Microsoft Office - both the desktop software and the Office 365 online productivity suite. Without question, Google Apps offers a very capable collection of tools, but unless your world revolves around Google, it might not be the right productivity suite for you.

Google's Android platform certainly has no shortage of applications.

Comcast subscribers will soon have the option to place video calls through their television, thanks to a partnership with VoIP provider Skype announced on Tuesday. Customers will need additional equipment to use the new feature.

Google has introduced Gmail Delegation, a new feature that allows multiple users to access one Gmail account. Gmail Delegation isn't specifically for business -- families sharing one e-mail account will find it useful -- but its collaborative nature is perfect for companies looking to ditch Microsoft Outlook's glitchy saddlebags and adopt Gmail as their e-mail system.

Microsoft's Windows Live Essentials 2011, is ready for prime time. Microsoft announced Thursday it's consumer focused suite of free applications, has moved from testing mode (beta) to the final release. The productivity suite is Microsoft's flagship bundle of Web-based productivity apps for managing and sharing images online, editing video, and sharing documents and files between PCs.

Pandora and Rosetta Stone have embraced social business tools and the Cloud to cut costs, increase productivity and improve collaboration. Learn how these two companies overcame security concerns, gained executive buy-in and more.