TechPulse 360

Ray Ozzie has decades of experience in developing collaboration systems and has a critical view of Google's attempt in this space

Microsoft stepped up its rhetoric against Google.

This time it’s Microsoft’s Chief Software Architecture Ray Ozzie to criticize Google’s collaboration service Wave launched last week, describing it as “anti-web,” and too complex.

Speaking tonight at the Churchill Club, Ozzie started by saying that “I have nothing but the most high degree of sincere respect of people who took this [Wave] on, because I love it when people think big [...] And what I’ve seen of it, it’s nice.” End of praise.

“I think It’s kind of anti-Web. It violates one principle that I hold so true right now, which is complexity is the enemy in the ethos of the Web [...] And fundamental to the Web are decomposing things to be simple enough. We don’t need open source [...] But what is key to the ethos of the Web are open data formats and open protocols, ” adds Ozzie.

Microsoft’s Chief Software Architect then went on to say that Groove (Ozzie’s former startup and collaboration tool) and Google’s Wave are basically the same thing; also pointing to Microsoft Live Mesh which derives from lessons learn developing Groove and provides a more simpler implementation of the collaboration tool.

Ozzie admitted that Live Mesh is not going to do all the things that Google Wave or Groove do.

“But I think the complexity [of Google Wave] is an issue, and they had no choice because the problem they took on, the way they defined it, is an inherently complex problem,” said Ozzie.

Here’s a video excerpt of Ozzie’s comments on Google’s Wave: