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Google built its new Web browser, Chrome, specifically to be a robust front end for Web applications, especially Google's own Docs and Apps products. But should enterprises that deploy Web apps be quick to switch over? Definitely not, say a number of enterprise writers.

Indeed, some observers say, Google's designs on the enterprise are not about winning market share for browsers, but about creating a wedge in the enterprise that will drive users away from Microsoft Office and toward Google Docs.

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Anyone who still doubts there is a bright future for technologies that create hybrid, online/offline applications need only consider Sun's JavaFX announcement at JavaOne this week. The Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq:JAVA) event demonstrates that JavaFX, which was announced last year, is closing in on, or at least gunning for Adobe's AIR and Microsoft's Silverlight, as a developer's tool for producing new applications.

But while AIR and Silverlight are oriented toward PCs, Sun hopes to leverage Java's broad adoption in mobile and embedded systems.