Open source advocate: Google will dominate the cloud

While I generally disagree with ZDNet's open source columnist, Dana Blankenhorn's views, I regularly follow what he writes and respect his analysis and clarity of thought. 

Given all the talk of Google's many antitrust issues and Google's own denials that it is a monopoly, Mr. Blankenhorn's candor as a Google ally, was refreshing in his piece: "Open source and the Google Cloud:"  

•  "Google has achieved such economies of scale in delivering transactions and storage that competing with them over the long run looks foolish."
• "Unless you have a breakthrough that can balance out those cost disadvantages you’re really at their mercy. If Google decides to “embrace and extend” its cloud dominance into software and services you’re going to lose."
• "It’s Google’s world, in other words. Open source just lives in it."

Mr. Blankenhorn is on the mark in his analysis. Google's domination of search advertising has afforded it the cybrastructure scale and scope that no one can compete with and that can easily be repurposed to enter into and dominate any digital information or digital distribution business -- almost at will.

Why so many are concerned about Google and antitrust is because of what Mr. Blankenhorn candidly asserts: 

• If Google decides to “embrace and extend” its cloud dominance into software and services you’re going to lose." 

The DOJ (book settlement) and the FTC (Google -Admob) are formally looking into Google's attempted extension of their market power into books and mobile advertising.

• Mr. Blankenhorn is putting cloud computing on the DOJ and FTC's antitrust radar screen too.