While Google Apps isn’t great, MS has a beta version of their competitor that interfaces directly with Office 2007 (and 2010). I’m going to try it soon, hopefully it’s a better substitute. And it WILL get better, MS is feeling the heat from Google.

That said, they are stubborn as a mule and arrogant to boot, and I’m not likely to submit to their our-size-fits-all philosophy. For example, GMail. Google has the brightest minds and researchers this side of IBM and Amgen, but they insist that the human brain is only benefited when forced to “search, not sort”, and they refuse to make commonly accepted features available like Folders and the ability to sort on sender, date, size, etc. One can argue that search IS superior to sort, but given that they only allow 20 results in an infinite mailbox, the searcher has to recall very specific criteria, or click through dozens to hundreds of pages.

Google Voice – a great system, but good luck figuring out when you’ll be invited, and whether you’ll be able to get a number in your areacode, and whether it is portable in or out.

YouTube – a great universal, virtual video library, except that stuff arbitrarily disappears, so there is no point in linking anything or saving as a favorite.

Chrome OS will no doubt be fast, but it won’t run MS Office, and Google Apps is no substitute.