When Google conquered Internet search in the early 2000s, it was strictly a Web company and faced only Web competitors. Since then it has only rarely ventured out of the friendly confines of the Web world. The 2005 launch of its controversial “book search,” which enraged the New York publishing industry, shows what can happen when Google leaves its comfort zone. Now, with its recently announced plans to enter wireless communications, Google is making its deepest foray yet into a foreign territory where its allies are few. It faces the challenge of not just entering the wireless world but also converting its inhabitants. Provided that Google has the nerve and resources to try to remake wireless in its image, it’ll either prove its greatest triumph or its Waterloo.
http://www.slate.com/id/2178158/