First peek at Google's PowerPoint killer?

Some Gmail users (including me, but not Josh, nyah nyah) have a new option in their in-box: PowerPoint files that are sent to them can now be viewed "as slide show." When you click on this link, you're given a full-window, Flash-based slide show of the file, with forward and back buttons at the top of the screen and a slide selector drop-down menu.

Right-clicking gives you options to play the slide show automatically, adjust the speed of the autoplay, and download the original file.

This is probably the presentation player that will be part of Google's upcoming competitor to PowerPoint. It's not, though, what we're all waiting for, which is the slide show authoring tool that will presumably have cool collaborative features similar to Google's word processor and spreadsheet. Nor does this peek show us what Google is going to be doing in the world of screen sharing or remote presentations, an area that several start-ups have recently attacked.

More coverage:

• First post (I think) on the topic (in Spanish) at google.dirson.com.
• Google Blogoscoped:Google's Presentation Application?
• ZDNet: Google Presentation application peeks around the corner