Proverbs 16:3

Google's hard drive in the sky, Google Drive, is a big threat to other cloud storage products like Dropbox and Box. But it's also a stab straight at the heart of Microsoft's mainstream business software, Microsoft Office.

While Google's productivity application suites, Docs (now incorporated into Drive) and Apps (for businesses), have been making some headway into Microsoft Office's territory, the important battlefield is not the application. It's the data. If Google can move the battlefield to a place where it has the bigger army and better weapons, the whole game changes. Google Drive might make that happen.

Let's look at the world from behind Google-colored glasses. Every time a user performs a search in the Google search engine, or clicks a link in Chrome, or +1s an item in Plus, Google adds an atom of data to its knowledge of what people like and what they do. This information helps Google index the Web and rank its results when people are searching for something. This is also the Facebook model, by the way.

The Google Drive 'Open with' feature can help you steal your data away from old desktop apps. Google Drive launch partner Pixlr shown.

(Credit: Screenshot by Ed Rhee/CNET)

Moreover, every action that generates user data that doesn't touch down in a Google product or service deprives Google of information that it could otherwise use to index and understand the Web of human knowledge and preference. Microsoft Word documents stored on PCs? In the most uncharitable view, every one is money being stolen from Google.

All closed, siloed apps, for that matter, remove opportunity from Google. Co-founder Sergey Brin has recently spoken out against apps and companies that wall off data from the open Internet. There is indeed a danger, but it's not just about openness, it's about Google's own ability to index the data.