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.

Google is as much an ideology as a firm and can resemble a nation-state in its pursuit of power rather than a mere corporation chasing quarterly numbers. Google and its allies are now trying to make the principles of openness—the commanding ideology of the Internet—the conquering principle of the wireless world, and the Android announcement is just the first step.