Microsoft's success was based almost entirely on lock-in: they made everyone depend on something that only they could provide. The equivalent strategy for Googl

Microsoft's success was based almost entirely on lock-in: they made everyone depend on something that only they could provide. The equivalent strategy for Google would obviously be to hoard the world's data in their private silos, which they are arguably already doing. I would find that scenario more plausible if it weren't for Wave. Wave, by its nature, will obsolete or radically transform, many of Google's existing web apps: gmail, docs, blogger, picasa, calendar.. anything related to communication or collaboration. Yet, it seems as though they've gone to great lengths to make Wave decentralized, even as far as open sourcing their server implementation. They've done this even though a silo style Wave app would likely be a huge success anyway. I can't fathom why they would allow Wave to exist if they were hoping to control everyone's data, as it clearly represents a threat to the control they already have. I'm not dropping my guard, but at this point my best guess is that Google is just trying to create an open and fair web ecosystem, in which they will compete based on their momentum and massive resources, and in which their major competitors lose their existing advantage. Either that, or they don't have much of a plan at all and the company is really just a bunch of smart people doing cool stuff with a huge pile of money that fell from the sky.