So I go away for a few days, and while I’m away, Microsoft announces Microsoft Office Live. The first few reports I read last night hinted that this was a hosted version of Microsoft Office, but that’s not what this sounds like at all:
Microsoft Office Live will provide your company with its own domain name, Web site, and e-mail accounts for free.
Additionally, Microsoft Office Live will offer you and your employees expert business management applications, such as customer, project, and document management tools, and a security-enhanced private Web site—affordably managed and maintained by Microsoft—where you can work together and share information with your employees, customers, suppliers, and contractors.
This sounds more like a hosted version of SharePoint, with lots of little extras:
A complete set of tools for managing time, tasks, projects, and company data that integrates with your existing Microsoft Office programs…
If I’m reading this right, it’s essentially an intranet for companies that aren’t big enough to have their own IT staffs.
A beta version is set to launch in early 2006.
Ed Bott 
Maybe this explains why the company is snapping up domain names left and right.