Since Google co-founder Larry Page took the reins as CEO from Eric Schmidt on Jan. 20, there's been no shortage of speculation as to why the changes were made now, what this means for Schmidt's own future and what the changes portend for the world's leading search company.

One thing that is clear is that Page steps into the role at a time when Google is being pressed by shareholders to return to its innovative roots and suppress growing competition from companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Groupon.

Well, that didn't last long. Google has announced it plans to pull the plug on Wave, a collaborative platform that once looked like it might become a Gmail-level success story for the search giant. In fact, there was talk that the platform, introduced last May, could replace e-mail altogether.

Despite "numerous loyal fans," wrote Google SVP of operations Urs Holzle in a blog, "Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked." Google has stopped working on Wave as a stand-alone product, said Holzle, though the application will remain in operation through at least the end of the year.

While not quite a moving apology, Google CEO Eric Schmidt's admission to the Financial Times that the company made mistakes in collecting data from private Wi-Fi networks is about as close as we're likely to get.

"We screwed up," he said about the interception of personal data by Google's Street View cars. "Let's be very clear about that. If you are honest about your mistakes it is the best defense for it not happening again."

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says there are a lot of "opportunities for innovation" in the smartphone market, but putting all of your development efforts into mobile isn't a smart strategy.

In an interview with CNN Money, Ballmer started by offering Apple a sideways compliment, noting that although it has done some "good stuff" in the mobile business, Apple still trails Nokia and RIM in market share.

In the wake of its acquisition by Oracle, many of Sun's IT bigwigs took flight (by choice or otherwise). Today, one of them landed, as Tim Bray, Sun's former director of Web technologies, started his first day at Google. And with Google's rivalry with Apple building, it's worth noting that Bray wasted no time firing a verbal volley or two.

The PC is taking its last breaths, if you believe Google executive John Herlihy.

"In three years time, desktops will be irrelevant," Herily, Google's VP of global ad operations, told attendees at the Digital Landscapes conference in Dublin Wednesday, according to Irish tech site siliconrepublic.com. "In Japan, most research is done today on smartphones, not PCs."