With the advent of corporate gmail, writely, calendar, and the rumoured storage system. Do you think google will take it one stage further and add the whole office suite (spreadsheet & database) to take on Microsoft?
It looks that way. Add I think they have just bought Sketchup, which is a simple CAD program. So we can see the foundations of a web-based office suite with collaboration features (integrated calendar / gmail / storage / word processor) built right in. I think they are looking down the line in anticipation of Microsoft moving off paid desktop software to subscription-based web-based software at live.com. I dunno how Google would try to take on MS Word / Excel though ... they're so ingrained as the standard in most companies round the world.
I would also think that Google continue to build all kinds of applications that make you independent from a single pc. On the long run this makes complex operating systems more or less useless because all tasks can be performed using some simple web browser interface. If I had to choose, I would bet my money on something like www.numsum.com being the next company to be bought by google.