The media and blogosphere is buzzing about Google Wave, and it’s inevitable that email admins will start getting asked, “Can I use it?” Or worse yet, they will start finding out that people are already using it without authorization. The hype suggests that Wave, which has not yet been released, will “redefine” or “reinvent” email as we know it. I hate to be the spoiler, but here it is: Wave isn’t going to be an email killer.

Without a doubt, it’s going to be a cool service with some mass appeal. Wave combines email, IM, wikis and forums into a sort of unified messaging platform. Google’s official blog talks about its evolution, and how the developers set out to erase the divide between different types of communication. The idea is to allow people to collaborate more freely with a combination of formatted text, photos, video, and other types of media. The rich media aspect allows it to be used for more persistent content, while the instantaneous collaboration makes it useful at the same time for less formal communication. A “wave” can be embedded in a website or blog, and it will be extensible with add-ons.

Early descriptions of the service are compelling, and it sounds great for group projects. But amidst all the hype, there has been very little said about security, or about archiving, and without those two elements covered, its use in the enterprise will remain limited. It is obviously part of Google’s cloud strategy. And just as it’s not practical to use Gmail (or any other free public email) for business use, it won’t be practical to use Wave for the same reasons—archiving and security would be problematic. Although it’s likely that Google will incorporate some sort of basic security and spam control into it, archiving far-flung, embedded Wave conversations would be almost impossible.