LOS ANGELES, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- U.S. search engine giant Google plans to offer Internet users online storage service as part of its attempt to shift personal computing to the Web, according to a news report Tuesday.

The new Google service would intensifies the Silicon Valley company's competition with software giant Microsoft, as users who store their data on the Internet may have less need for Microsoft's desktop software, the Wall Street Journal report said.

Google said in a statement that "the applications people use everyday, such as e-mail, photo sharing, and word processing, are moving to the Web because it's easier to share and access your data." The company already offers free e-mail and other services where users can store data.

The newly announced move is squarely in competition with rivals who already provide free or fee-based online storage, including Box.net, a Silicon Valley start-up with 15 employees that offers 1gigabyte of free storage or 5 gigabytes for 8 dollars a month.

Such solutions, where data, services and applications are stored and run from Internet servers, are referred to as "cloud computing" in contrast to desktop computing.