Link - Google Is an Advertising Company

If Google has a platform, it???s an advertising platform, not a developer platform. I???m not even saying Google should have a developer platform ??? I???m just saying they don???t. Any software that uses Google as a back-end for web search could be modified to use Yahoo or MSN by changing a few lines of code. Google Desktop might be popular, but it???s nowhere near as cool as Yahoo Widgets (a.k.a. Konfabulator) in terms of acting as a developer platform.

A good assessment of what Google is. For all those thinking Google Earth is the next GIS platform, think again. Google only views it as a way to push ads on to your desktop.