Google has confirmed it is preparing its own distribution of desktop Linux, called Goobuntu, based on the popular Ubuntu distribution, which in turn is based on Debian.

The announcement caused speculations that Google would move against the Microsoft monopoly on the desktop.

Sadly, this is not the case. Google has released a statement saying there are no plans to release the badly named distribution outside the Google complex. "[We] use Ubuntu internally but have no plans to distribute it outside of the company."

Rumors about alternative browsers, such that Google is supposedly working on have been popping up about one per week, perhaps supported by the company's obvious interest in the desktop.
Projects like Desktop Search, Google Talk, Google Earth are however much, much less complex than a full fledged desktop operating system, even if it is built on another.

Even though we won't see Goobuntu on anyone's desktop, Ubuntu has only to win with this endorsement by one of the biggest names in technology, and can probably only stand to gain from having Google engineers working on their code.