Microsoft News Tracker

The sirens of Google rumoring have a new song this morning:

Google plans to announce Friday a new service that will allow consumers to buy and download videos from its Web site, and a downloadable bundle of software applications, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Thursday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

“We aren’t commenting on any new planned services,” a Google spokeswoman said. “All we’re saying is that we have a number of exciting announcements that we will be make on Friday at the Consumer Electronics Show.”

Friday presumably means the keynote of Larry Page, Co-founder and President of Products, Google, which is scheduled for 4 PM Pacific time on that day.

A purchase tie-in with Google’s video search service has been rumored for some time, but the software bundle is a surprise:

The Google Pack would bundle Google software along with other software such as Norton AntiVirus, RealPlayer and Trillian. Google’s given no previous indication something like this would be coming.

You’ll note that aside from what Google is providing, this is a package of accessories from 3rd party vendors (Symantec, RealNetworks, and Cerulean Studios respectively) that compete with functionality which Microsoft has bundled or is about to bundle into the Windows operating systems. Other software mentioned for the “Google Pack” such as Adobe Reader is less directly competitive with Microsoft.