Today, Google will launch Chrome, just days before the search giant's 10th birthday. The buzz overnight has been that it's just an internet browser. But that's surely not the case. Silicon Valley Insider says what we're all thinking - that Google's new project is a whole lot more than a way to surf the internet and uses Microsoft's old 'link and lever' strategy that served Windows so very well.
It'll bring together all your Google services on and offline (the latter powered by Google Gears). And that's a scary prospect, especially when Google will inevitably add to its existing PC manuafacturer relationships by pre-loading it on numerous PCs. Google already know what's in my webmail and what I search for. And I don't want them knowing what URLs I visit or anything else about me - it knows enough. Of course, the reason why it wants to know this stuff is that it's all about serving ads.
Gears: Google's Microsoft slayer
If you've used Google's iPhone app, you'll know that it's basically a Gateway to all Google products. This is now being replicated in the cloud-computing-powered Chrome. Google knows that by bringing everything together it can only make itself stronger. Google Gears replicates this strength offline.
Google Gears is an underestimated part of Google's portfolio. The ability to work on documents offline will help Google's online propositions work like standard software - and what's more, everything is integrated and linked up by your single Google Account. Not exactly Google's sexiest download, users will soon have Gears without even realising it as part of Chrome.
When that happens, why would anyone pay for stuff like Microsoft Office? And would you even need Windows with all your apps appearing as shortcuts in Chrome?The OS that sits behind that window becomes much less significant, making pre-installed Linux an attractive money saver.
And that, more than anything, is probably what's probably raising heckles in the boardrooms at Microsoft's Redmond HQ.
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nopayne
September 2nd 2008
4. You might want to read the fine print...
"By ... displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services."
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tech89
September 2nd 2008
3. im used to microsoft office software, i already know how to use it, it works, and has alot of functionality. Office has greater power to do tasks which google software doesn't. Personally i wouldn't want to sign in to an account every time i wanted to do something with the software.
The browser im all for, as long as its faster than FF3, has greater compatibility, and less memory usage. Can google do all that??
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macosxp
September 2nd 2008
2. What!? If Google would use the browser to track what urls you visited, nobody would use the browser. You would probably have to check a box just to provide anonymous usage information! But chances are that you have Google cookies in your Internet Explorer that tell Google what you click on.
The deal is that they don't want people using Internet Explorer. If people use Google Chrome, which is supposed to be faster, more stable, and more secure than IE, people won't use IE. And that's why they made the V8 java part open source, so that Firefox and Safari will adopt it, taking even more share away from IE.
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lermanj
September 2nd 2008
1. I couldn't agree more. Very insightful, Dan.
I've talked about this on my blog at network4network4@blogspot.com
Jim Lerman
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