I think that defenitly google is going for providing applications over internet to your desktop. This is big threat to all the desktop software firms.

All of the above is true. However I think it's more likely that Google will try and integrate a Skype out service with Gmail. This would combine email, address, calander, word processing etc. This means that Gmail will become a sort of hosted desktop standard. Most people who use it already store most of their documents there. The billings could integrate with Google accounts......Google will become the biggest telecoms company overnight - contextual ads from voice recognition on screen as you're speaking - you heard it here first.

On a separate thought...

Publishing houses will make hay with books like..

"Understanding Google DeskTop"
"Google Handbook"
"complete Google Guide"

For the CEO/CIO types we can expect

"Business in Google Way"
"Google and Speed of Light"

As with the other post, seems to me that Google may just be ramping up their Gmail capabilities to start providing that functionality to a wider number of Home and Small Business users. Why host email in-house when Gmail can do it better and cheaper.

Google is probably looking to eventually start to challenge Yahoo and AOL for some services beyond what Google currently supports.
Then eventually on to challenge Microsoft. With Googles plan of software as Web based services, they already have the delivery platform to be agile (Microsoft still has most of their software delivered via CDROM because it is easier for them to charge and track billing taht way).
Hopefully Google realizes something that Microsoft learned a long time ago,but has forgotten. Stay somewhat lean, and charge a small amount for something that you can sell to a LARGE number of people. Microsoft gotso big, they have had to charge way too much for their products and they basically begged the consumers to invent Open Source as an alternative.

Hmmm...JavaPot port Open...ah Device Manager problem. Resolution: Enable 'Nose' in 'AM' mode.

Operating systems as we know them are shifting radically. USB Pen Drives are bootable; All that's needed is a login interface with access to Google accounts through a 'common terminal' or personal device. An OS on the pen drive could open a secure shell and access the personal Desktop over the Internet connection in using Web protocols.

With current cell phone technology we are capable of having a secure data line. These systems could end up being no more than intelligent interface devices we use through our cell phones. The list of needed components are: main board, processor, memory, NIC, USB port, display panel and input device. By the time this all rolls out we could be using virtual keyboards and glasses. This will greatly reduce the size of the device to where it could be carried in a med sized coat pocket.

With GMail already a very viable alternative to Outlook they could implement a flavor of 'Open Office'(now avaiable in a portable pen drive version). Most other items considered 'essential' are provided as a tool of Google. Free. That includes space on their drives.

So where you ask is Google going. Google's going Giant Killing. Personally, I don't think MS ever published anything worthy of the profits permitting someone to live in a $40mil mansion on the shores of Lake Washington. Their stuff simply isn't good enough, it never has been. It's just been marketed to a business community that 'could not afford, not to buy'. The perpetual undertone being the hope they're not getting 'to' screwed over 'this time' around.

Take a look at where it's gotten us. 90% of us use this junk and we mostly like it. (insert own 'Orwellian, 1984' reference here. I'm using the scene with the rats and the cage myself, yup, the first one) So we're now computer dependent on a perpetually leaking boat to keep the affairs of humanity high and dry. I fully expect to see Robi the Robot to come screeching through any minute looking for the now aged Will Robson so to impart his four word analysis of the current situation. It ain't Hikou, but it'll do.

Reminiscent of a fat child run amok in a candy store. Fists clenched full of various sweet treats, ankle deep in candy wrappers littering the floor, chocolate smeared from ear to ear across their face as they attempt to sate themselves in a horrid porcine festival of engorgement . . . and all they want is more, more, more. (For any confused; the chocolate is the cash in your wallet.)

So how do you kill digital giants . . . you simply point out the topic is moot by providing the User community with an better interface to a more cost effective alternative. So far, Google has not invoiced me. I like what they put out and I'm going to keep using it, I want them to keep making more just like it.

If this were a Hold'm hand, expect a LOT of Ballmerisk style tantrums at eachbetting round. Much screaming. Heapings of pseudo-intimidation. Billows and billows of humid hot PacNW air and a Fleet of Lawyers showing up when Google is still in the hand through the Turn and at the River. When Hole cards are shown, only then will we see what Google actually has in store for Billy the pot bully. Don't think we'll be seeing what MS is holding.

Next Time: Weaning off Windows; Making The Cold Turkey Reboot

Shortly There After; Nutz Cut'n Time; Google's morphed to GooglEvil Who will save our data now!?!

....Kurtz had it right at the end of the flick....”the horror, the horror'.