Chrome: Full Metal Jacket Ecosystem

Economic Times, September 12, 2008, reported that Google’s Sergey Brin sees Chrome as a challenger to Microsoft Windows. The story “It’s Not Just IE, Google Is Eyeing Windows’ Desktop Pie Too” by Stephen Wildstrom (Business Week) is here. For me the key part of the article is that it puffs up a beta browser into a big bazooka. The article chastises Google for a flawed initial effort. I agree. But the most important statement attributed to Sergey Brin, one of Google’s founders, was:

“What we want is a diverse and vibrant ecosystem…We want several browsers that are viable and substantial choices.”

Let’s take this at face value. Why will the existence of multiple browsers help Google achieve its objective?

What’s the rush? Internet Explorer and Firefox have market share. Google is sufficiently realistic about the speed of migration from one browser to another. Google is taking a long view. The Google browser is not a browser. I know this is a different position from the millions of words written about Chrome. My research suggests that Chrome is a way for Google to bring control to certain applications and operations; namely, an icon on the desktop that launches a cloud based service. To the user, there’s no browser present. Google’s patent documents for the Programmable Search Engine suggest that Google will build its own data stores from bits and pieces of existing data. If this is an accurate reading of the PSE February 2007 patent applications, Google wants to become the semantic Web and probably “the Internet”. Chrome is a puzzle piece, not the solution to the puzzle. Chrome adds steroids to some 95 pound weakling issues with Google’s current enterprise offerings. Think “air lock” between the organization and the Google cloud.

Agree? Disagree? Send me your facts.

Stephen Arnold, September 16, 2008

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com

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