Google Notifier and Google Talk tools not yet available for Linux

The Portable Consultant is increasingly amazed at how excited folks get about Cloud Computing and Google Apps while simple, basic tools like Gmail Notifier and the Google Talk client are only available for Windows (and perhaps Mac) systems.

Surely these should be OS agnostic utilities in this day and age!

Ok… the Google Talk tool is available as a ‘gadget’, but if a download-and-install version is desirable, why only for Windows? (Which, by the way, the Google Talk download page does not make clear although the Gmail Notifier page does).

A silly grumble, perhaps, but in this day and age one expects better from Google.

Cheers,
-pmh