Kottke.com has a great entry on Google's hidden intentions to take over the world of personal computing, it's actually based upon this entry at Topix.net which speculates about the arrival of Gmail and how Google seems to be highly involved with OS research.

Basically, what they are talking about is the possibility of a new OS, that Google or it's subsidiaries would sell for rock bottom prices (Kottke says 10 bucks). That GooOS (the Google Operating System), would require almost no fixed secondary memory (harddrive) and would tap directly into GFS (Google File System) through [obviously] a broadband Gigabit connection. From there we'd run a Windows Desktop clone of Linux / Debian, with a built-in Office clone, games that don't need to be downloaded or installed, gmail, [of course] search and everything else that currently requires to be installed locally.

This theory does leave alot of questions unanswered... like for example Privacy and security of data. Already, Google's Gmail plans are being subjected to heavy scrutiny based on their lose terms of service and the way email content would be scanned. A California senator is even trying to make a law banning Gmail. Now imagine 50 million people saving all sorts of confidential information on a distributed platform that has just been found vunerable to data theft?

This is all very interesting to me... sort of like a reminder of the days I used to rely upon Desktop.com as a secondary OS. But things have changed, and now my PC is turned on 24/7, running a remote desktop service on a [theoratically] 10mbps line and keeping the same IP address for months, allowing me access to it anywhere on the planet, at anytime I want. Let's see if Google can come up with a better option for me.

Oh, and I never mentioned Microsoft once... that's me being ungrateful I guess.