• by Wendy Davis , Staff Writer @wendyndavis, October 4, 2005

Google, flush with more than $7 billion in cash from a stock offering last month, has just submitted a plan to provide free Wi-Fi to all of San Francisco. And it doesn't look as if Google intends to stop with the City by the Bay.

While the proposed service is currently limited to San Fran, a Google spokesman, in an e-mail to The Minute, described the bid as "an opportunity to make San Francisco a test-ground for new location-based applications and services that enable people to find relevant information exactly when and where they need it."

Google's ambitions clearly extend further than becoming an Internet access provider. Today, the company and Sun Microsystems announced that Google would start distributing Java with its toolbar. Doing so will enable users to use the free OpenOffice, which competes with Microsoft's Office.

Rumors about the impending deal this morning caused Microsoft's stock to dip by 2.2 percent, or 55 cents. At least one financial company -- Goldman Sachs -- thought the partnership boded well for Google; before details were even announced, Goldman reiterated its rating of "outperform" for the Mountain View, Calif. company.

The relationship between Google and Sun goes way back. Google CEO Eric Schmidt was chief technology officer and corporate executive officer at Sun. While there, Schmidt led the development of Java, according to his biography on Google's Web site. Sun co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim was one of the earliest investors in Google.

Both companies have also tangled with Microsoft. For Google, the rivalry is ongoing -- most recently manifesting itself in a court dispute about Google's poaching of former Microsoft exec Kai-Fu Lee. In the past, Microsoft paid Sun $1.6 billion to settle patent and antitrust disputes.

Whether this new Google-Sun venture will put a dent in Microsoft remains anyone's guess. But the folks at the Redmond behemoth can't be all that happy today about the muscle flexing coming out of Silicon Valley.