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In a PowerPoint presentation to financial analysts last week, Google said that it envisages a future with 'infinite storage, bandwidth, and CPU power'.

This will allow it to store 100 per cent of user data: 'With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including: emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere.'

As a result the computer platform will become less important.

'This will help us make the client less important (thin client, thick server model) which suits our strength vis-a-vis Microsoft and is also of great value to the user,' it said.

'As we move toward the "Store 100 per cemt" reality, the online copy of your data will become your Golden Copy and your local-machine copy serves more like a cache. An important implication of this theme is that we can make your online copy more secure than it would be on your own machine.'

The presentation is no longer online, but extracts plus a PDF of the slides have been reproduced at glinden.blogspot.com.