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Column: Google launches Microsoft’s big fear
September 4, 2008
They do things differently in Mountain View.
After years spent denying that it was working on its own internet browser, Google this week unveiled, ahem, its own internet browser. “It just happened to migrate from being false to being true,” Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, said airily.
Mr Brin, who had the dishevelled look of the true software engineer, spoke at a press conference at Google’s headquarters in the Silicon Valley town to unveil Chrome.
Chrome is free so I downloaded it and took a look. I concluded that it lacks some basic browser features and is not obviously better than the alternatives, notably Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox.
You can read the rest here and comment below.
“Javascript, the software used most for video.”
I think you are talking about Flash based videos online not javascript.
Posted by: Kenny Villacorta | September 4th, 2008 at 9:58 pm | Report this commentThis article is right on about the threat to Windows and the irrelevance of the operating system. This is really the early 1990s all over. And what saved Microsoft the first time was not Internet Explorer but Windows 95 and the increase in computer literacy.
I was on a task force in the early 1990s developing requirements for public computers in a new university library that was aiming to be state-of-the-art in computer use. It was to have PCs with access to local applications (e.g., Word and WordPerfect!), network resources, and internet resources (e.g., Gopher!). The library began developing a user interface in Windows 3.1 to provide these capabilities. I actually saw a prototype. Halfway through the process, with the deadline looming, we got a message: They had discovered this marvelous new program from the Univ of Illinois called Mosaic and had switched the development of the entire user interface to Mosaic.
Since that time, the library systems have evolved. Everything on the website is available anywhere on the web. Access to local applications like Word, are available through icons on the desktop or from the Start menu. (Note that at the time the system was originally implemented, the OS was Windows 3.1 (and DOS), and the expectations that users would have been able to find the applications in the OS was much lower. Now, post-Windows 95 and nearly everyone being familiar with this system, local applications can be on the desktop or the Start menu.)
So the threat to Microsoft again is that everything one wants to do is within the browser, with the OS being reduced to the software supporting the browser.
Here are a couple of suggestion to Google and other competitive browser developers: Since locally installed applications will still be significant for certain purposes, can you come up with the means for providing the capability to start and run those applications within the browser? Second, since some files may still be more appropriately stored on the local system (hard drives or network) can you come up with the capabilities of managing the file system (moving and copying files, creating folders, etc.) within the browser. At this point, you may just render the OS irrelevant.
Posted by: John Ottensmann | September 5th, 2008 at 12:20 am | Report this commentA further thought, following on my previous post. The browser wars ultimately are not, and cannot be, about getting people to use Microsoft IE. If Google, or Firefox, or anyone else, comes out with a browser that goes that much farther in making the OS irrelevant, then what advantage is there in MS matching those capabilities in IE in making the OS irrelevant? (At least as long as MS makes available IE for other OSs). The only rational goal for MS with IE is to drive other browser developers out of the market so that they cannot come up with the browser that makes the OS irrelevant. They did it with Netscape. Given Google’s resources…?
Posted by: John Ottensmann | September 5th, 2008 at 12:37 am | Report this commentChrome is to browsers as Sara Palin is to Republican politics. It’s the future, without — at this point anyway — high definition.
Chrome’s release is 0.2.149.27, only 20 percent of the way to version 1.0, so I’m not surprised there are features missing.
Here’s my wish list:
1. That it not be as clunky and heavy as I.E. (but I happen to like I.E. 7 so this is really a comment about feature bloat and file size [see item #3 below]).
2. That it not have 6 million plug-ins like Foxfire that are really only 219 plug-ins with 5,999,881 variations.
3. That it doesn’t have horrendously large update files.
4. That I be able to sync all my browsing favorites, history, cookies, etc. among all the machines I use everyday whether it’s a Mac, PC, Linux or my Blackjack.
5. This is a big one: they figure out how to turn this fledging browser into the basis of a new web OS.
So that’s the high def future…all the crap we do online in a browser that doesn’t require a big OS like Vista or OSX.
And that’s what I like about Sara Palin. It’s the future I can’t see, but can imagine (stupid).
Posted by: Steve | September 6th, 2008 at 1:04 am | Report this comment(a) The Chrome version released recently is very clearly marked as a ‘beta’ release, so for a first effort, it’s actually not too bad. What the final release looks like after cleanup could be quite impressive. Also expect they’ll have the Mac & Linux versions available for release.
(b) You’re right in that Chrome won’t replace Windows; where you’re off is that, as more programs become browser-based, the underlying OS that browser kicks off from becomes a commodity item, which no doubt keeps the Microsoft management awake nights. Windows and Office account for the overwhelming majority of their income; marginalizing them undercuts their ability to subsidize other areas, most of which at best break even.
Posted by: Robert Halloran | September 8th, 2008 at 3:53 pm | Report this commentHi,
I thought your article is on the button! I’ll be reading your technical articles more in the future.
I work for Vodafone Group R&D.
You may be interested to know that we have created a Developer community around the Mobile Web, and free to download developer apps. The site is starting to become very popular around early adopters and general users for certain types of apps. You may find this a good resource for your technology focused work.
You can find my blog here:
http://www.betavine.net/bvportal/web/guest/mobile_linux/blog
And the betavine.net site here:
http://www.betavine.net/bvportal/home.html
Our biggest hit so far is Linux Drivers for USB datacards that work with UMPC’s. I can see how this may worsen the Microsoft dominance in a few years:
1) Very cheap Netbook PC’s (UMPCS’s) running Linux;
2) Web app’s like Googledocs that work anywhere;
3) Flat rate tariff’s from Mobile Operators encouraging internet use over HSDPA and 3G.
Very interesting!
Kind regards, Nicholas Herriot
Posted by: Nicholas Herriot | September 9th, 2008 at 3:54 pm | Report this commentLovely article - clear, concise, well written. Will definitely come back for more. Well done.
Posted by: Clive Maguire | September 10th, 2008 at 12:01 am | Report this commentClearly the writer is overlooking some of the sleek features of chrome. It is aruable that chrome lacks some of the necessary features that Firefox, Opera or IE have, but google never worries about them, because they know in the clean-up release they can imbibe all those sort of features in chrome if they want to.What makes google special is their thought process about making chrome special. Here is the speciality:
each tab in chrome corresponds to a process, not a thread. This is the biggest overcome. If you take a quick glance at the task manager, you can verify it. The big deal is that you can view two youtube videos simultaneously in two tabs. And not only that, it gives us the option to drag the tag to make it a new window. Now THIS is special.
And this is just the beginning. I have enormous faith on Google that it will improve more and more in the clean-up final version!
Now we are waiting for a Google OS. The future is google!
Posted by: Sagnik Mukhopadhyay | November 14th, 2008 at 3:51 pm | Report this comment