The Apple / Google Ramble... I, Cringely

Google has an insatiable appetite to serve tiny ads. It will continue for sometime... Mobile is a big market for them, one they cannot afford to loose. Expect the Zune 3 to accord some sort of targeted advertising once Microsoft gets over trying to catch the iPod. They lost, end of story, innovate or die. The revenue stream from micro payments, in the form of contextual advertisements will propel google into the stratosphere. This is really what the Lunar project is about, setting expectations on the moon...

Strange Bedfellows: Why an Apple/Google collaboration has been so difficult to make happen

We're approaching a transition point in computing that most people don't understand. It isn't just the Internet or search or access to movies and music that matter, but all of those presented in a technological context that Just Plain Works. The importance of all our digital stuff along with our fear of losing it will shift us more and more toward central backup and storage. And once you have your life sitting on some company's server, are you going to move it on a whim? No, and that means there will be a LOT of money to be made providing these services. Storage and automated backup and probably some form of netboot with a fresh OS image every time is the future of computing whether we're talking about desktops or notebooks or mobile phones.