Google are starting to put fingers in every pie and it's only a matter of time before they hit things off in certain areas and get bigger and bigger. The press go crazy for things they do, just like Apple.
With regards to their proposed OS, after messing up with Vista, even Microsoft fell behind Mac and popular Linux distros and are now playing catch up, Google have got twenty years worth to catch up on. No matter what Google do in the next year for their OS, Microsoft, Mac and Linux aren't going to stop improving and let them catch up. But who knows, maybe they'll do something revolutionary or maybe they'll fail (Google Answers anyone?).