But as you point out, the difference is that Google is more about open. Google Calendar is available via XML and iCal – both open standards. Google services are available as API’s and Google provides libraries and open-source projects to push the cause.

I can’t imagine why Google would want to buy Microsoft, other than to finish the killing stroke at that late date. Google’s operation and model seems so much different from Microsoft’s target.

Writely had a good idea about what it was it wanted to do, but an antediluvian view of how important it was in the big picture. It ain’t. Now, hopefully, Google will be able to take the idea and do with it those things that Google has become most excellent at: providing access as freely and widely available as little google hearts can make it Google hit the “limiting-access” culture of Microsoft, et al., like the asteroid which put the finishing touch to the demise of the dinosaurs. Too bad for Microsoft, et al., that they have become so specialized at limiting access as a mechanism for survival and growth, that they either can’t escape or will simply be bought up by Google before they escape, if they get in Google’s way, or they will fade into irrelevance.

Am I a googlephile? No. Just a realist. When you see an organism emerge from the herd, and jump to the head of the line in any niche, that usually spells doooooom for the others of its species that have overspecialized and who cannot adapt quickly enough to survive the competition. Stephen J. Gould would be proud of Google: Google is an object lesson that punctuated equilibrium is indeed a fundamental process. The trait which Google exhibited: eliminating the culture of limiting access. Absolutely cool. Just cool. Every time I read/hear a snide remark from about doing no evil as a corporate policy, I am reminded how the flatearth culture made snide remarks about Copenicus, et al.

Yeppers, have a good day.