Google Climbs to New Heights of Arrogance with Wave
gigaom.com
gigaom.com
It is like email--they are both communication protocols. Why would he compare a protocol to a product that uses a different protocol? It's like comparing bittorrent to Firefox.
The creators rightly dismissed the question of monetization because you don't monetize a protocol, you monetize programs built with it. The demo is just one of many potential products that can be built on it, so they can't answer that question based on it.
They rightly dismissed the competition of Sharepoint and Outlook because that was primarily a presentation of the protocol. The demo seemed like something thrown together to show how communication through the protocol looks like, and not the premier application that they will use it for.
I have an idea for potentially using the protocol for a distributed issue tracker that would work well with a DVCS; the protocol is not limited to Outlook and Sharepoint competition.
I/O is a developer conference; talking about the protocol without an actual product is just fine--the demo was good enough to show developers what basic features they can use for whatever product they can imagine.
That demo just shows what you can do. You can't compare it to any existing product. As terrible as this article is, the author does come to the realization that it will be useful for their actual email and office products, however brushing that question off wasn't arrogant; it was a weak denial--a developer conference isn't the right place to talk about their office products.
The thesis of the article is that the Wave pitch is arrogant. The evidence mustered is that Google has a poor track record of weaponizing innovation, and has little to say right now about what they'd actually do with Wave, but is prepared to say that Wave is more important than SharePoint, and maybe SMTP.
I don't have to agree with this thesis to see that it's worth considering.
That's actually exactly what I thought it was about. Your comment, applied to this article, is the perfect explanation of why it is terrible: The presentation isn't about what they want it to be about, but that doesn't make it an arrogant presentation. Google was not doing a product presentation and GigaOm didn't understand it, and got upset when Google dismissed questions irrelevant to what they were presenting.
I don't understand how "not about business" equates to "arrogant".
As for SharePoint — is there anything less important than SharePoint? Maybe one of my socks or something. Or one of my less important GitHub projects.
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It's amazing how crappy information like this keeps getting spread around, and I think it reflects the authors eagerness to prove his point with little regard for the facts.
One must not forget that, even if it was greatly mediatised, it was still a develloper conference, not a consumer/enterprise conference. To be sure of that, you can just search other "non-techy" news sites about it, and you will see it's quite dead. For one good reason. It's not launched yet.
On the other hand, even if it's not launched, it's of great interrest to us devs, and there is some rationale behind the fact of unveiling it before a finished product is available, be it only for information purposes, since it's gonna be an open platform.
Devs are by nature quite arrogant about their new babies, there is nothing wrong with that. Wave looks quite exciting, and gigaom looks like they're lacking some good material to make themselves interresting ...
Google is truly an idea farm. They push out their ideas in a subtle manner, releasing rapid-prototypes to see what sticks.
Is that being arrogant or just smart? Have they ever released a product that was over-hyped, over-marketed and have it flop?
Those are the kind of mistakes that kill companies. Apple could certainly lend a story or two.
Admittedly, Google definitely goes overboard with some projects but none of those were mentioned in this article.
You think Google made Wave federated out of the kindness of their hearts? Expect an enterprise version.
I plan on using it at my company.
The only wish feature is directory services with administrative controls.
I don't mean to be rude, but are you comfortable making Wave a big part of your organization's process and culture? What will you do if Google stops developing Wave?
Lets say Google releases Wave, it doesn't gain a lot of traction, and they Jaiku it. For someone to pick up where they left off a lot of things would need to happen:
- Google would have to enable exporting your data capital into a standard format
- The new provider would have to match Google's now defunct service feature-for-feature
- The new provider would have to have the infrastructure to handle this demanding XMPP app, which has real-time editing to the nth degree, and store all of the associated rich media assets
- The new provider would have to find a business model which would sustain such expenses, succeeding where Google had failed
On top of this, the new developers would be expected to iterate the product, provide customer support, and solve whatever problems caused the app to fail under Google's tenure.
If you're sure Google will stick with Wave then none of this matters. But that's not a bet I'd take.
I do understand that google is a huge company and definitely has some financial end game associated with wave, but I don't mind that. What we need is more companies innovating, regardless of whether they are failures yet or not.
I think its irresponsible and ignorant to call a company arrogant because they are not worrying about making money(at least initially). Only thing that is evidenced by this article is that the author doesn't understand google or its motivations.
Come, Bring a Friend and let's discuss Google Wave over lunch.
Please use the following link: http://www.socializr.com/event/976099347 to RSVP.
Feel free to forward to anyone who might be interested.
ALL their products fundamentally is about that.
It makes perfect sense.
I love how it mixes and matches a bunch of different technologies and use cases together.
A really interesting protocol. I wonder if it'll take off like how email did?
I am intrigued by this, and by the fact that the API documentation is available before the service/product is.
Some percentage of the 4000 will be developing I'd think.
Regarding HN attendance, can you start a poll? (I can't)
The half-assed launch of Wave today struck me as little more than an attempt to steal a few news cycles from Bing. When Google actually develops and releases a mature product based on the Wave concept I'll listen. Until then I'll take Wave about as seriously as I take OpenSocial.
I'll see your OpenSocial and raise you a Knol.