If the news came out that a portion of California broke off into the water, it might take some time to comprehend the effects of what transpired, but it wouldn’t come as a surprise. Similarly, below Yellowstone sits a super-volcano, that when it blows will alter forever the landscape of North America and do more to permanently endanger the positioning of America than any Republican ever could. Ok, so we’re just making light of the current political environment with that last point, but the point remains the same that certain events will happen, and when they do, they will alter the environment, but not one will say, "I didn’t see that coming." And, so it occurs in the business world. The iPhone’s success could fall under such an expected inevitability, even though its creation might not have seemed so obvious. Its launch drew attention quite strongly because of the anticipation that came from seeing what Apple would do with a phone. Google will get into the phone space, although whether as a hardware maker or just software maker seems unclear. You wouldn’t expect them to necessarily produce a phone given their upbringing in software, but then again even a mobile operating system wouldn’t have seemed all that understandable unless you already knew Google’s belief that mobile queries will outnumber computer based ones. From that angle, it seems only logical that they make a strong push into mobile.
Google has crafted an almost startling number of products, either organically or through acquisition; one need only log in to their Google account to see the list, with even more on display in the full list. As of Tuesday, September 2, 2008, something new showed up in the list, and it might just be the most important one in their list, answering a question so many have asked for years, which at first was "When will Google build a browser," that then turned into, "Why hasn’t Google built a browser." Well, Google has built a browser, and unlike Android or any product with Apple, it took about 24 hours for news to break and then Google to release the product to its users. It was a carefully crafted and executed launch after endless speculation, including Google commissioning a comic book that just happened to go to a blog following Google the day before the launch and a news conference at Google HQ. From calculated leak (or at least adhered to public timeline) to downloadable in one day, all without any major hiccups that could put in a dent in the image Google crafted. And, in almost un-Google-like fashion, much of the fodder – the unique comic book, for example – they have made publicly available to anyone, as though to take away some of the power of the press. (For a review of its functionality, check out the Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg and the blog that broke the story in the first place, Google Blogoscoped along with their follow-up post with more discoveries.)
Something about the release, though, as significant as it, comes as a minor let down, and for me, it probably stems from how thoroughly Google has kicked the crap out of Microsoft that the success of their browser seems secondary. When the questions first came out, Google had just come on to the scene, and Microsoft Explorer’s dominance looked like an impediment to their growth. Once it became clear that even with browser’s being set to MSN from the gate that wouldn’t hinder Google’s ability to capture search market share, the question of whether to have a browser started to seem irrelevant, almost unnecessary. Then again, Google has long built products with limited commercial value if not limited mainstream value, but it doesn’t tend to commit to products without a purpose. Chrome certainly has a purpose. If you’re like me, you might initially think the purpose market share related, wondering like I, "Do they really need more?" Yes, apparently they do, and market share in this case has little to do with Google’s already monopolistic search query volume and everything to do with something grander, a paradigm shift in the way users think about the web and use web-based applications in their lives. As an aside, listening to Sergey Brin, it’s hard not to find the irony behind his talking about how choice should exist in a market where one player has 80% share.
It would have been more fun were Google to release a browser early on, when the contest between Google and Microsoft seemed very much like underdog and evil empire. The new browser war has little to do with the browser wars that played out between Netscape and Microsoft. That one was immediate and tangible, and when the browser war seemed about web browsing. In this one, not winning won’t hurt Google tremendously, but winning would most likely finalize Google’s unspoken objectives of becoming the largest and most valuable technology company. This browser has everything but almost nothing to do with the computer experienced web and everything to do with gaining a foothold and being the entry way into all things connected from all devices connected. Google doesn’t want to just be the start page or place to navigate to in a browser, but the operating system. That they want to become the web’s operating system comes as no surprise; they probably would have attempted it sooner had they not become the platform for monetizing web so rapidly. As reported in this exceptional piece in Wired, Google wanted to release a browser when the rest of us wanted them too, but CEO Schmidt kept them out of the fray and focused on their core search business. It’s another example of his stellar leadership. Yet, for as great of an achievement as Chrome is, it’s hard to root for them. Success of chrome means even fewer options and control for the rest of us. It means greater reliance on Google and repeat of Microsoft ascendancy. Instead of being a freeing experience, it seems more like having rights revoked. Controlling the browser allows Google to control the user flow. It gives them another angle to funnel money the way they want, and, it provides even less recourse for those in marketing, because the users could technically change browsers if they wanted.
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