We are also now heavy users of Google Docs, which functions as our central file-sharing and file-storage facility. I've always been too cheap to buy a proper server and local area network for the office, and now we don't really need one. Google Docs can be clunky in certain ways, and it won't handle more elaborate file formats, but for sharing Word documents and spreadsheets, it's just fine. If it ultimately enabled us to dispense with Microsoft Office altogether, we could save some money there.

And what does Google charge for all these things? Nothing.

I'm not convinced that these things will be free forever, though, and that's one of the things that make me nervous. As a business strategy, it would be logical to get people locked into these things and than gradually start charging for them. On some of the services at least, it would be a big pain in the neck to switch.

As a publisher, I'm also very cognizant of the fact that Google is in some respects a competitor in that we are both chasing online advertising dollars. Further, its power in the online ecosystem is overwhelming, and it can almost make or break a site like NewWest.Net by the way it treats us in search results and in Google News. At a minimum, it has the ability to peer deeply into my business; I trust it doesn't actually do that, but still.

Google, like just about every company in the technology business, is positioning for the day, not too far in the future, when most, if not all, computing services will be delivered via the "cloud." Big server farms run by Google or Amazon or IBM will do the heavy lifting, and we'll all just plug in via our high-speed Internet connections.

For small businesses, this is almost all good: no more servers, no more expensive packaged software, no more IT guy, and a lot more capabilities. I just hope that the Google cloud isn't the only one out there.