Google OS?!

A few days back I was having a discussion with some friends about Google vs. Microsoft. It was about operating systems and the much talked about tendency (which is yet to be materialized) of moving towards a web based operating system. What would a web based OS be anyways? It looks pretty obvious that it's a piece of software that has to be loaded remotely when the computer boots up... The only problem would be the BIOS would need to be configured to load that software when you power on the computer. Obviously, the problem here is the download time and bandwidth required on startup, but it is likely that some caching/smart update mechanism could be employed to only download something once. What software would be the basis of the web based OS? Well - a browser would suffice. The rest of the system would run in the browser... which brings me to Google. Google hired a few years back some folks (especially Ben Goodger in early 2005 - lead developer at Firefox) which is rumored have been acquired to work on a Google Browser... Why would though Google need to get involved in the browser market is not clear and obviously there is no official position on the matter. It is however quite obvious that Google would have great benefits if they would be able to come up with a web based OS which could potentially challenge MS. The key is simplicity, price and the ability to run office based applications and interact with MS based office applications. Does that sound familiar - Google already has web based MS interacting office applications!. Google already has the recipe to building simple applications (GMAIL!). The only thing remaining is the Browser OS. They can't even be very far at this moment, remember that Google already made inroads into the SO market with their Android platform due to be released shortly for mobile phones ;) I'm very keen to seeing what's coming, because I'm sure something IS coming...