The dizzying ambition of Wolfram Alpha

This summer, Steven Wolfram launched, Wolfram Alpha - A computational knowledge engine, a grand vision and ambition to launch a "cognitively savvy" search engine. Now more of his ambitions are revealed but he is getting pragmatic (sadly) and joining hands with bling. I think its premature for him to undermine his chances of thriving alone and I say it as some one who has high hopes for his knowledge engine. But even if he fails, he has already created a new standard so high by which tomorrows venturers will only be driven to make it better and in the end we will be the beneficiaries of this is competition (assuming wolfram alpha will be used by us for cognitive betterment rather than "checking" the weather).