Of course local computing is faster. But when you use multiple computers, and are working with other people, sharing calendars and documents as they are changed, web aps shine.

If you have a laptop and don't need to coordinate constantly with other people using calendars and documents/wikis and instant messaging... well, then you sound like a writer and probably are a writer.

The rest of us are happy to trade a little application speed and a bunch of over engineered features in Word or PowerPoint for an application that we can log into from any internet connected computer.

And nobody who cares about images has any business using existing web applications to manipulate them. But the fact that web based photo applications are in their infancy doesn't negate the utility of other lower bandwidth applications such as available on google docs. Get real.

What "rest of us"? The vast majority of document collaboration happens via email. Even my Millenial Generation son does it that way.

The problem with Google Apps is that they are an attempt to claim territory using an old paradigm. They may be lighter weight than the current Office apps, but they aren't lighter weight or faster than the Office apps of 10 years ago with which they have feature parity.

So Google Apps are going after Microsoft's Cash Cow. Straight at the teeth of the marketing machine. Do you really think Microsoft is standing still? Every $1 that Google pours into making their Web Apps better is $1 that it does not spend on Cloud Apps.

And Cloud Apps are where the future is. Trust me, in October its going to get very interesting.