I didn't hear anything about this until I just stumbled across it, but Google has just released a new programming toolkit called the Google Web Toolkit.  I haven't been able to dig into it much yet, but from all appearances it seems to be the user interface framework that they used to write GMail, Google Calendar, Google Base, etc.

It's a Java framework that provides plug and play AJAX, Google-style.  Their information page is obviously targeted at enterprise developers.  For example:  "JavaScript's lack of modularity makes sharing, testing, and reusing AJAX components difficult and fragile"--they're obviously "forgetting" the numerous AJAX frameworks that already exist out there, as is typical of Google these days, but I digress :)  Their framework provides AJAX user interface widgets and built in remote procedure call capability (allowing the client to query the web server for fresh data without a browser refresh) to developers without requiring the developer to worry about the actual AJAX implementation.  The output looks pretty similar to Google's existing products.

This has to be Google's first attempt to break into the enterprise market aside from the Google Search Appliance.  It's obviously meant to make Java developers comfortable with Google in a professional sense.

However, this is funny.  I checked the Developer Forum, which has all of 10 posts at the time I'm writing this.  The VERY FIRST POST is titled "How can I stop sending info to google server?" and Google's answer is that yes, it sends data back to Google.  Even for apps that have nothing to do with Google.  Computer geeks historically don't like this kind of thing, it will be interesting to find out if this particular aspect of the rollout comes back to bite them.