Does Windows Still Matter? Is any Browser the New Window?

September 4, 2008,  12:14 pm

Does Windows Still Matter?

“Chrome is not going to replace Windows. A computer requires an operating system such as Windows, Apple’s OS X or Linux to make the machine work. It does, however, have the potential to do what Mr. Gates feared: make the choice of operating system less important.”

So writes John Gapper, the fine columnist for The Financial Times in today’s paper. Chrome, of course, is Google’s new browser, which is pretty explicitly designed to be a Windows killer. As Mr. Gapper notes, that precise fear — that an Internet browser could become such a powerful platform for applications software that it would effectively take over the function of the operating system — is what caused Microsoft to start the browser wars in the 1990s, effectively putting Netscape out of business.

But it seems to me that even without the browser-as-platform, Windows is already dying a death by a thousand cuts. Yes, Microsoft still makes billions by selling pre-installed Windows via computer manufacturers. But ever-so-gradually, the Internet is upending its business model just as surely as it has upended models for the music, television and newspaper businesses. It is also true, as Mr. Gapper notes, that Bill Gates saw this coming many years ago — and sounded the alarm in a famous memo to Microsoft’s executives. But in the subsequent decade-plus, the company has been unable to keep it from happening.

Think about it: do you really care anymore which operating system you use? I don’t. …

New York Times Agrees: Microsoft Windows Toast

The market trend that, slowly but surely, is eroding one of the greatest business monopolies of all time–Microsoft’s Windows–is now visible enough that general business columnists in the mainstream media are writing about it. Consider the latest from Joe Nocera of the New York Times:

Google’s Chrome Already Owns 1% Of Browser Market And 6% of SAI Readers

No Mac version yet and a public panning from WSJ oracle Walt Mossberg, but Google’s (GOOG) Chrome already owns 1% of the Web browser market. Actually, 1.13% of the market as of 1 p.m EDT, according to Net Applications, which is tracking Chrome usage by the hour…

Why Google Chrome? Fast browsing = $$$

Posted by Stephen Shankland

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.–On the Web, a site that responds a few milliseconds faster can make a big difference in people’s engagement. It’s for this reason that Google believes its new Web browser, Chrome, is a project worth investing in rather than a footnote in the history of the Internet.

Chrome, Google said during its Tuesday launch event, is much faster at showing Web pages than the most widely used browser, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Google’s hope is that performance will open up the bottleneck that chokes the speed and abilities of today’s Web-based applications.

In short, Chrome is more of a long-term competitive threat to Microsoft Office and Windows than it is to Internet Explorer.

That may sound a little grand, but the evidence is on display in Google’s own lobby, where the search company’s computer kiosks present a browser only–no start menu, no desktop shortcuts, no operating system.

Why speed means money
Google benefits materially from fast performance. First, when it comes to search, Google discovered when its search page loads fractionally faster, users search more often, which of course leads to more opportunities for Google to place its highly lucrative text ads. Second, a faster Web application foundation means that Google’s online applications for e-mail, word processing, spreadsheets, and calendars can become faster and fuller-featured.

Note that Google likes to talk about its three main efforts: search, ads, and apps, and with Chrome or a faster browser in general, all three benefit.

“Our business does well if people are using the Web a lot and are able to use it easily and quickly,” Google co-founder Sergey Brin said…

Ten Questions About Google Chrome

By Harry McCracken  |  Posted at 12:28 pm on Monday, September 1, 2008

See all: News

Four years ago, I blogged about rumors that Google was working on a Web browser. I found ‘em intriguing, as anyone would, but no such browser ever appeared, and Google became an enthusiastic Firefox booster. The blogosphere pretty much stopped pondering the possibility of a Google browser, and so did I.

Today brings news that the rumors were apparently premature, not wrong: Google Blogoscoped has published an amazing comic book by Understanding Comics’ Scott McCloud introducing Chrome, Google’s browser. (UPDATE: I’ve condensed the comic into a highlight reel.) Over at All Things Digital, Kara Swisher says that Chrome may be formally announced as soon as tomorrow. (UPDATE: Kara dropped me a note to say she’s confirmed Chrome will arrive on Tuesday.) (EVEN FURTHER UPDATE: The Google Blog now says that Chrome will be available for download tomorrow; it’s Windows-only at the moment, but Mac and Linux versions are in the works.)…

tEarn Exitmerical Network: Google Chrome KIS Browser

Official Google Blog: A fresh take on the browser

In designing websites, I’ve always consider the many, cluttered rows of the chrome as part of the page’s UI. Thus, we’ve moved away from tabs at the top of the page to simple menus on the left (see http://tEarn.com). Google Chrome is cleaning up the mess, replacing the search/URL/address with an omni-box. Great move.

Further, an automated iGoogle/myYahoo makes a lot of sense.

KIS.

A fresh take on the Chrome browser

A fresh take on the browser

9/01/2008 02:10:00 PM

At Google, we have a saying: “launch early and iterate.” While this approach is usually limited to our engineers, it apparently applies to our mailroom as well! As you may have read in the blogosphere, we hit “send” a bit early on a comic book introducing our new open source browser, Google Chrome. We will be launching the beta version of Google Chrome tomorrow in more than 100 countries.

So why are we launching Google Chrome? Because we believe we can add value for users and, at the same time, help drive innovation on the web.

All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends — all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build.

On the surface, we designed a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn’t the browser that matters. It’s only a tool to run the important stuff — the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today’s complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated “sandbox”, we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers.

This is just the beginning — Google Chrome is far from done. We’re releasing this beta for Windows to start the broader discussion and hear from you as quickly as possible. We’re hard at work building versions for Mac and Linux too, and will continue to make it even faster and more robust.

We owe a great debt to many open source projects, and we’re committed to continuing on their path. We’ve used components from Apple’s WebKit and Mozilla’s Firefox, among others — and in that spirit, we are making all of our code open source as well. We hope to collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.

The web gets better with more options and innovation. Google Chrome is another option, and we hope it contributes to making the web even better.

So check in again tomorrow to try Google Chrome for yourself. We’ll post an update here as soon as it’s ready.

Posted by Sundar Pichai, VP Product Management, and Linus Upson, Engineering Director