SaaS: The Return of Google Wave

You may recall that Google ceased development of their Wave e-mail/collaboration/instant messaging platform back in August 2010. But it’s rising again, Google now reports, in the form of the “Wave in a Box” project, putting the open source server and web client code already completed into a single application. Here’s the scoop.

“This project will not have the full functionality of Google Wave as you know it today. However, we intend to give developers and enterprising users an opportunity to run wave servers and host waves on their own hardware,” says the Google blog entry.

All the same, they make it sound like they’re looking to keep the spirit of the Wave project alive, making sure those who want to deploy it have a fully-working solution. And they’re turning it over to any Google Wave developer who wants to contribute code. Moreover, Google assures that the new product will be able to import old Wave data.

It seems unlikely that Wave in a Box will compete with Novell Pulse in the enterprise in terms of features — but if the developers are there, I believe Wave in a Box could attract some enterprise business.

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