While I can't say for sure they won't go after others, something the article doesn't mention is the fact that i4i went to MS with their technology originally to try and get MS to include it in Office. MS said they weren't interested, and then went ahead and used the technology anyway. I'm not a fan of software patents, so I can't really root for i4i, but I don't exactly feel any sympathy when MS takes their technology without asking and then essentially acts the bully and says "well, if you don't like it, sue us".

For teams working on projects within an organization I can see this being a killer app. Keeping the documents together with the discussion of those documents is useful (I know other office type apps attempt this, but more as a hack bolted onto a word processor or something, as opposed to part of the original design as it is in Google Wave) The question will really be adoption. Which, I imagine, is part of the reason Google is open sourcing it. If it becomes something that people find useful in a business environment, then it'll become common enough that it'll get used at home as well. And although the 40+ crowd will likely have problems getting used to it, the upcoming generation who grew up with email, IM, online photos, facebook, etc... won't have a hard time adapting to this.

"10,000! We could almost buy our own ship for that!" "Yeah, but who's going to fly it kid? You?"