When Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates takes the stage to deliver the keynote address at the annual 2008 Microsoft SharePoint Conference, he will announce the availability of both Search Server 2008 Express and the Silverlight Blueprint for SharePoint.

Search Server 2008 Express, the free, downloadable enterprise search product announced in November, is relatively simple to install and easy to use, and brings a powerful set of search features, including new capabilities to help businesses connect to a wide range of information, a Microsoft spokesperson told eWEEK ahead of the conference.

Microsoft has opened up its hosted version of SharePoint and Exchange to SMBs as it tries to take advantage of the demand for software as a service. Now, businesses with 5,000 or fewer users can sign up for the beta of a hosted version of SharePoint, the collaboration software from Microsoft, as well as Exchange. Previously, the hosted versions were only available to larger companies.

General availability of the subscription service is expected by the end of the year, said Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft, speaking at the annual SharePoint conference in Seattle on Monday. "We’re moving to embrace customers of all sizes," he said.

Microsoft is set to announce general availability of the free online component of Office on Tuesday. Microsoft Office Live Workspace lets users access and share Office documents online. It first became available in December when Microsoft opened a limited beta version of the service.

With the broad availability of Workspace, Microsoft has also rolled out some updates, which became available late last week. Workspace now features an activity panel that shows users a stream of activity on the page, including noting files that have been added or deleted. Users are now able to upload multiple files at a time. The update also includes a bit of polish on the sharing experience, said Eric Gilmore, a senior product manager at Microsoft.

Microsoft still has its eye on Yahoo, but CEO Steve Ballmer would not say Monday whether the company plans to pursue a proxy fight to remove Yahoo’s board. Ballmer confirmed "a range of dialog" and "alternatives" under discussion with Yahoo, whose executives spurned Microsoft’s initial $44.6 billion cash-and-stock offer, posing the question of whether Microsoft would pursue a hostile takeover. The worth of Microsoft’s offer has declined by several billion dollars as the company’s share price has dropped over the past few weeks.

Kaspersky Lab has identified a new malware scheme taking hold. To start, a user’s computer is infected with a piece of malware called MonaRonaDona. Rather than hiding itself on the machine like most malware, this makes itself highly visible to the user, a probable attempt to get people to Google solutions for MonaRonaDona. Once a user takes that step, you are led to a site called Unigray Antivirus that purports to be a legitimate antivirus company.

A little digging revealed that Unigray has only been a registered Web site for two weeks–an immediate red flag. When you run a scan of your computer using Unigray’s technology, it pops up with completely random infections, calling them all a form of the MondaRonaDona malware. Upon closer inspection, Kaspersky analysts uncovered that Unigray is only capable of removing one piece of malware from a user’s system–you guessed it, the MonaRonaDona malware for a fee of $39.90. This leaves very little doubt that the same group is behind both MonaRonaDona and Unigray.

Google really does not understand the special needs of businesses, as its model is based around consumer search, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates told attendees at the 2008 SharePoint conference on March 3.

Answering a question about Google’s competitive threat to SharePoint, Gates said that, "Its [Google’s] productivity tools do not have the features and responsiveness of ours. In terms of Google tools, the day they announced them was their best day, really. Remember Google Talk? I can hardly remember its name? It was going to change the world," Gates said to much laughter and applause. In contrast, SharePoint was about end-users and the ability to get things done, he said.

Despite using Adobe’s Flash, Flex and AIR technologies, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff said he has no interest in Microsoft’s competing Silverlight technology.

"We’re not looking at Silverlight today," Benioff said at the Adobe Engage event Feb. 25. "We have not had the demand. Today the action and excitement remains in the Flash, Flex and AIR area."

AIR is the newly released Adobe Integrated Runtime, which enables developers to use proven Web technologies to build rich Internet applications that deploy to the desktop and run across operating systems.

Microsoft is working on turning USB-based flash drives into a "Windows companion"–a new product known as StartKey–that will allow users to carry their Windows and Windows Live settings with them.

StartKey isn’t just for USB sticks; it also will work on other flash-storage devices, like SD memory cards. Microsoft is looking to turn these intelligent storage devices portable "computing companions" for users in both developed and emerging markets, with availability (at least in beta form) likely before the end of this year.

When you sign up for an email account at Google’s Gmail, you have to navigate past a CAPTCHA–squiggly words and letters that need to be typed into a box to prove you’re human and not an automated system looking to send spam. But in the war against spammers, CAPTCHAs are not holding up well and the latest attacks let spambots into Gmail.

CAPTCHA stands for "Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart." Typically image files, the challenge-and-response system has been fairly successful in preventing spammers from opening email accounts on popular Web domains like Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail. Those accounts are prized by spammers because Web administrators can’t simply blacklist the popular domains.

Notorious spammer Robert Soloway will get his day in court next month when his criminal trial kicks off in Seattle.

Soloway was arrested in May and charged with sending out tens of millions of unsolicited messages; so many, in fact, that investigators called him the "Spam King," and his arrest was hailed as a major blow in the fight against spam. Many of Soloway’s unsolicited messages were sent out using hacked "zombie" computers infected with botnet software, prosecutors allege.