Of course I speak in hyperbole, but this is very important (and there’s a good reason Apple is whetting our appetite for Mountain Lion with this linchpin app first):

Apple – Mac OS X – Download the free Messages Beta.: “Download Messages Beta and get a taste of what’s coming in OS X Mountain Lion. When you install Messages, it replaces iChat. But iChat services will continue to work. And Messages brings iMessage to the Mac — just like on iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch running iOS 5.”

Messages stands at the middle of what Apple is hoping to do with Mountain Lion… move the computing experience into an (Apple) ecosystem that is device agnostic and flows easily from device to device to TV to device.

iCloud is not just a cloud platform, it’s a strategy.