Butterfly in the Flames

Google to Microsoft: Game On

The “browser wars” should be renamed the “browser battles.”In its boldest move yet to secure tech dominance on the internet, Google today released a Web browser aimed squarely at the market dominated by Microsoft—but the bigger target is the operating system, and Microsoft’s Office software suite, a cash cow for Microsoft totaling $15 billion.”Google really believes that the internet is the new operating system,” said Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of Search Engine Land, a technology news and analysis website. “Google wants to provide the applications that people use on the Web, and the best way to do that is to make them compatible with its own browser.”This new battleground is much broader than others over internet software—including search—because it is a war for control over computer software, and suggests that Google’s larger target is Microsoft Office, and even Windows itself.But unlike the Windows or Vista operating systems, a Google operating system is expected to be one native to the Web, instead of residing on individual computer desktops.Some experts believe that Chrome, when combined with Google’s growing suite of Web-based applications, including Gmail and Google Docs, could pose a challenge to Microsoft’s domination of computer operating systems and its highly profitable Office software suite.”Chrome is a double threat to Microsoft,” said Sullivan. “It’s not just about the browser threat to Internet Explorer. It reinforces the threat to Microsoft on the application front as well.”

In a blog post, Sundar Pichai, a Google vice president for product management, sought to portray Chrome as not just a browser, “but also a modern platform for webpages and applications.”Prior to the advent of “always connected” broadband internet, most computer software was either for offline use, like word processing and spreadsheets, or for online use, like Web browsers. But Google is clearly pushing for a new model, one that integrates all software into a Web-based platform centered around a Web browser.Google is not so much trying to replace Microsoft Windows as render the traditional idea of the desktop-based operating system obsolete, a vision it can’t realize as long as Microsoft controls the Web-browser market with Internet Explorer.Although Google dominates Web search, one of the most basic internet functions, it has not yet found a way to crack the stranglehold Microsoft has long held on the browser market with Internet Explorer, which owns 75 percent market share. Google has tried to parry Microsoft’s dominance by supporting Firefox, the open-source browser, but Chrome represents a new, frontal assault on Internet Explorer.Microsoft, fresh off its stinging failure to acquire Yahoo as a way to attack Google’s search position, isn’t sitting on its hands.Just last week, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 8, which includes a feature that makes it harder for websites—including Google (and Microsoft)—to track users’ activities, a potential threat to Google’s highly profitable targeted advertising. In a statement, Microsoft responded to the release of Chrome.”The browser landscape is highly competitive,” said Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft’s general manager for Internet Explorer, “but people will choose Internet Explorer 8 for the way it puts the services they want right at their fingertips, respects their personal choices about how they want to browse, and, more than any other browsing technology, puts them in control of their personal data online.”Google’s entry into the Web-browser market has been widely anticipated.As Google has matured, its torrid growth rate has slowed, putting the company under pressure to find new sources of revenue. As a result, in recent years Google has increasingly expanded beyond its Web-search roots into Microsoft’s territory with Web-based applications for word processing, email, spreadsheets, and visual presentations.But Google’s track record building software has not matched its success in Web search—Google applications have yet to catch on broadly and have shown reliability issues—which is why the company faces an uphill battle if it wants to make a dent in the Web-browser market.Chrome’s debut should definitely worry Microsoft, said Rob Enderle, president of the Silicon Valley-based tech consultancy Enderle Group, but the onus will be on Google to show why people should switch from Internet Explorer, especially because most users don’t really think about their Web browser as long as they can access websites smoothly.”People typically don’t switch browsers unless they are really unhappy with the one they are using, and Microsoft owns this segment,” Enderle said. “Google will need to provide incentives to get pe …

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