Ask YC: Is Google trying to own everything or simply have access to them?

Last week was OpenSocial and today their mobile platform Android. To some extend both these platforms have the same approach, they are both open, Google is giving easy ways for developers to come up with new applications and the possiblity of the developers reaching a lot more users in a much easier and faster way, and Google is constanly looking to add new partners (major ones) that would also support these platforms. One thing that I find interesting here, is the comparison between the new ways of creating platforms and possibly setting new standards. In the 90's everything seemed to be closed and platforms were mostly used to set standards and create lock-in situations and exclude the competition (Microsoft was the pro here). Now it seems like the opposite, not only everything is open with Google, they are in fact working hard to get others partnering with them, instead of trying to compete with them and trying to exclude them. I don't personally believe that Google is doing this merely because its better for the end users or developers. The web has changed many things and creating such lock-ins are not possible anymore. So Google will not have any other choices but to open up and share. But the question for me is whether this is another way to approach the situation and by these new movements, Google will in fact be able to set the standards and create a new kind of lock-in (I say new since its not excluded to Google now and others have access). One thing that is more clear is that by offering the platforms Google is making the information at least accessible for themselves. Without doing so there will be walled gardens all over the place and everything would be excluded to those networks. And by knowing Google's mission their access to all those data is vital to their survival and their leadership in the market. So maybe the main question is whether Google is doing these so they can insure their access to all these data, or they actually have other plans behind the scene and will be able to own a lot more than simply having access to the data(in which case other companies will also have the same access to some extend).