Microsoft-Google Collision About More Than Search

"Microsoft and Google are on a collision course, but the battle is about much more than searching for Web pages.

Google has the potential to become a primary interface for computing. Much as Lotus Notes aficionados spent their entire computing lives in Notes, Google potentially could and wants to become the platform through which users view the world.

You can see this evolving—even before Google has its IPO money to spend—with the introduction of Google News, Google Local, Gmail, Froogle, and ambitions for mobile products that are barely scratched by today's offerings. Google already has a little publicized "enterprise appliance," which is a server with Google search to use inside corporate firewalls." (Via FTPOnline)