It’s all over the press, Google wants to buy wireless spectrum. Even my six year old knows that Google is bent on world domination (and doing well at it), so it’s not too surprising that their next step is buying the air.

But what’s fascinating about this story is Google’s intent to partner with small carriers on the use of the spectrum. They apparently want to buy but not operate the network – as Chris Sacca, Google’s head of special projects said, "We see a lot of companies in this space who we would love to collaborate with." That’s a bit unusual for Google – a company that tends to build or buy, but rarely to partner.

So, why is Google looking to partner here? Especially when sometimes, it’s great to own and do everything yourself. Just ask Steve Jobs. The success of the iPod was the seamless user experience – from service (iTunes Store) to software (iTunes) to hardware (iPod) to software (iPod User Interface) again. Everything works the way Steve wants it to – because he controls it end-to-end. It’s a closed loop. That's the beauty and the curse.

At MacWorld, when Steve introduced the iPhone, he quoted Alan Kay, saying "People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware."

But my iPhone is not an iPod. As an impress-your-friends toy it’s a wonder, as an iPod, it’s beautiful, as a phone, it’s nice. But as a converged device, it is utterly painful – because it’s reliant on a data network that is spotty, reportedly overloaded, and wicked slow. A chain is only as strong as the weakest link, and the iPhone’s network is just that. When I found out that the game Bejewled was available on the iPhone today, I rejoiced for about 10 milliseconds before I realized that I would need network connectivity, since every add-on app (including Bejewled) must run in the Safari browser over the net. The iPhone has promise, but even though AT&T was willing to give Apple deal terms that nobody else was (control over the customer, and a share in access fees ), what it couldn’t give Apple was control over the entire user experience.  When I’m yelling at my iPhone and seeing “Could not activate EDGE,” I am quite sure Steve wished he controlled the network too.

So, that brings us back to Google. $4.6B (to buy the wireless spectrum) is real money to Apple and the rest of us, but it’s a few less lattes for Google. They’re about the only company on the planet that could realistically own, operate, and control the entire range of converged user experiences. But they’re telling the world they’re going to partner.

That gives me hope -- Google is betting that they can work with others, each bringing what they do best to the table. True convergence crosses boundaries of expertise. Either you own it all, or you get good at leveraging the strengths of others. It’s increasingly difficult to own it all. So, as the bar gets continually raised, each player has to bring their “A” game to the stadium. The fact that Google wants other people on their team may just raise the game of multiple industries – not just for a single player, but across the board. And, if we’re lucky, that will help provide better consumer experiences and more choice for everyone.