As has been discussed many time before at this site and elsewhere, Apple pretty much dominated the tablet world with the iPad. When using the iPad, Apple has even provided iWork (at an extra charge of course), which are a pretty good suite of Office-type apps to use to get work done.

With the impending announcement of new Google Chrome and Android tablets it seems like the search giant is gearing up to get into the mobile office space in a big way with today’s announcement of the acquisition of QuickOffice.

“Today, consumers, businesses and schools use Google Apps to get stuff done from anywhere, with anyone and on any device,” the company wrote on its blog. “Quickoffice has an established track record of enabling seamless interoperability with popular file formats, and we’ll be working on bringing their powerful technology to our Apps product suite.”

Google already has a nice Office-like environment with Google Docs (now Google Drive). The acquisition of QuickOffice can only help to build on that to deliver an even better user experience and functionality.

Even with companies like Apple, HP, Dell and Microsoft trying to dominate the mobile and desktop computing space, that hasn’t stopped Google and partner Samsung from doing their best to get a piece of your hard earned dollars. To help their cause, this week Google and Samsung announced a new Chromebook and Chromebox computer.

In case you’re not familiar with the Chrome concept, both new machines are powered by Google’s cloud-based Chrome OS and not Android or other more traditional computer operating system. In other words, all your documents and data are stored on Google’s Cloud and not on the local machine.

In addition, Samsung’s newest Chromebook, the Series 5 550, features a 12.1-inch display, an Intel Core processor, 4GB of RAM, an HD Camera, two USB 2.0 ports and six hours of continuous battery life. All in all some decent specs.

The Chromebox is styled after Apple’s Mac mini and adds four additional USB 2.0 ports. Both come equipped with built-in dual-band Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n and Gigbit ethernet, however the Chromebook also has a 3G connectivity option. The Chromebook Series 5 550 starts at $449 and the Chromebox can be purchased for $329.

Both devices are available now. What do you think? Is this the future of computing?