'Not a walled garden'

SAP product manager Alexander Dreiling demonstrated mini-programs the German software colossus tailored to its needs using the Google Wave platform.

ThoughtWorks Studios product development vice president Chad Wathington provided attendees a glimpse at how that US technology firm adapted Wave to link exchanges to what employees are working on.

Open source software titan Novell leapt onto the Wave as a collaboration tool that provides security and control along with access, according to Andy Fox, vice president of engineering at the California firm.

The "lion's share" of Wave computer code will be open source, or public, according to D'Alesandre.

"We saw the announcement for Wave and we got really excited about the Wave protocol," Fox said. "It's not a walled garden."

D'Alesandre joked about a lengthy video online at wave.google.com in which an Australian colleague dubbed "Dr. Wave" stars in a one-hour 20-minute presentation explaining the new communications platform.

"What we really wanted to show today is we are trying to start an ecosystem of these real time collaborative communication technologies," D'Alesandre said in closing.

"We really believe this is a better way to communicate; where technology is going."