Some times I think the "big brain" reputation at Google is overblown. Other times I am just in awe with how they are able to take a fresh look at something and deliver a product. It is incredibly hard to deliver software. Big problems tend to take big teams; big teams tend to take huge effort to organize and direct. Even little ideas can be overwhelmingly difficult to implement at big companies.

These days I work in the real-time collaboration space. This is a huge area of work and technological growth. RTC is basically about communication or sharing information and that is a big tent. Phones, email, text IM, p2p file transfer, video conferencing, etc etc.

A while back, I heard about Google's efforts on GrandCentral. This week I am a bit in awe of their latest announcement, Waves.

Their demo says it all. Forget the tools you have now and rethink the problem. If you were to design a tool for information sharing and collaboration today, what would it look like?

The telephone is about a century old. Email is 40 years old. We are used to these tools but I think all of us with information jobs struggle to get our jobs done more productively. Although it may feel at times like your job is managing email it is not; your job is getting something done and email is just one tool to help. It was time for someone to ask the big question and deliver something different.

Even though Google does not have proven experience in this area, I think they have some advantages over other companies.

If they think of their product as "information", they are free to rethink large areas and still stay within their corporate mission.

Since they make money on advertising, they can fund new ideas without having to worry about revenue models nor are they hampered by existing business units.

Their corporate DNA involves client-server applications, usually through a browser. This design lends itself particularly well to some problems. For some types of services, it just makes more sense to keep data centralized on a server and access it from anywhere while it is much harder to solve the same problem with a different paradigm like trying to synch data on separate desktop computers.

Then we get to the Innovator's Dilemma. Since Google does not already make applications with many customers, they dont have work with groups of people who are already doing something similar. They dont have to convince those groups to try something new; they dont have to force those groups to try something new or support the new idea; they dont have to work around those groups or protect their new vision from being quashed by a powerful group. There is less organizational resistance to innovation.

Another thing they dont have to do is deal with customers. Having customers is a good thing because it generally means revenue and cash flow to support development. However customers and customer requests often have a randomizing affect. It can be hard to stay focused on a pure vision when you have powerful customers pulling you this way and that way.

Yes, I am looking forward to seeing what they do with Waves. Maybe it will be a flop, but I am always excited to see people focus on the core issues and try something new.