When I was at Google the sheer number of crazy projects being worked on internally, whether or not for profit, was insane. Literally thousands upon thousands of projects. They are working on anything and everything, I think that is something that the competition really underestimates here.
This is why their parking lots have electrical sockets to plug your car into or why they released Lively (when I was there it was but a one man project that I saw at an internal techtalk). It's all things Googlers wanted to work on. They will work on anything they find interesting and they'll generally get the full support of the company (at least that's how it was in 2007).
Now I'm at Microsoft and the biggest change to me is how focused Microsoft is at executing very specific projects. The other big change is how many strengths Microsoft has that most of the world refuses to acknowledge. Microsoft gets a lot of bad press, but holy shit when they target something, they go for all or nothing. There is a drive internal to Microsoft unlike any I've seen... when they want something, they won't stop until it's theirs. They want blood.