Google is an industry leader in the search and advertising business, with Yahoo! and Microsoft being a very distant second and third. However, Google was beginning to fear that the power Internet Explorer (owned by Microsoft) has in the web browser space could be leveraged to promote Microsoft’s search and advertising business. Enter Chrome, Google’s beta web browser that launched early last week.
Initially, it’s likely that Firefox will feel the burn of Chrome more than Internet Explorer. IE currently has a web browser penetration of 73% much in part because it comes preinstalled on all Window’s based PC’s where as Firefox and Chrome both need to be downloaded. But wait – didn’t I hear rumors that Google is hammering away on their own operating system? Hmmm, everything is starting to make a little more sense.
Chrome is simple and fast. In fact it is the first browser built from scratch with web based applications in mind. Web based applications (also called cloud applications) haven’t taken off yet, but it’s less than a coincidence that moving towards web based apps would make the need for the current Microsoft Office obsolete.
Google is also expanding in the media space. Knol is a beta site that contains user generated articles about certain topics. It hopes to create an online encyclopedia based on articles by subject matter experts, think Wikipedia. The difference? Wikipedia is collectively edited and ad free where as Knol contributors maintain editing control over their content and can choose to place ads (sold by Google) on their pages. This is not Google’s first venture into the media space. Ever heard of YouTube and Blogger? Google owns them too. Needless to say, media companies are also starting to fear the wrath of Google.
Google, you need to make up your mind. What’s it gonna be? Search advertising, web browsers or media? Keep this up and people may say you remind them of a certain Redmond based start up.
Google is the company of the century
I think the move to make a browser is genius. They already dominate the web, and now they offer a vehicle to surf it. What’s more, Google is all about information and if you think that they offer Chrome out of the kindness of their heart you are wrong. The Chrome browser is yet another data collection tool for the company, where as in the past they only had information on where you went from their pages, and what ads you clicked on in AdSense, they now can track you’re every move on the web- and that is worth alot of money to someone.
I have not checked it for a while, but I bet Google stock is hovering around $500/share, and even at that price it is probably a steal.
Everything is moving from PC based to server based. In the future PC’s will be smaller and less powerful, deriving their processing power from the servers they tap, and all this spells trouble for the folks in Redmond.
By: Mark H. on September 7, 2008
at 2:14 pm
PS- Every Microsoft program I use breaks.
VIVA LA REVOLUCION!
By: Mark H. on September 7, 2008
at 2:15 pm
I am definately gonna tryout this google browser.. Microsoft is slacking.
By: Ben Hogan on September 7, 2008
at 4:03 pm
I reread this post at like 3 am last night which prompted me to download chrome; which prompted me to remember how much I love google; which prompted me to stay up till an ungodly hour personalizing my gmail account, going totally ocd over my google calendar, and playing around with various other features. Basically..google is now taking over my life. What do you think the odds are I can convince good ‘ol Dan Hogan to invest money in google for me….hmmmm…well I’m off to make a phone call….:p
By: Laura Hogan on September 18, 2008
at 9:59 pm