Google Chrome: A Browser?

This is interesting. But, I personally don't see how in the short term their browser will have an immediate effect on or pose a threat to Mozilla's Firefox or Microsoft's Internet Explorer.

The long term (Google's version of long-term is fairly short in terms of product development) is another story. The relationship between Mozilla and Google has been renewed and to the extent that Mozilla's orientation is aligned with Google, who fund 85% of their foundation, it seems highly probable that some Mozilla code, being open source, will eventually find its way into Chrome and visa versa.

It would make a great deal of sense for Google to simply acquire the Mozilla Foundation at some point and reign in control, management-wise of their 'brain trust' and benefit from Mozilla's long-standing experience in browser development.

Which is not to say that Google's Chrome won't be good, but no CIO is going to touch it with a barge pole any time soon.

As an observer, it isn't difficult to connect the dots, and see how Google Gadgets, Google Video, Google Apps, and Google Apps Engine (Google's part of the cloud) are interrelated and recognize that Google Chrome will perhaps bring all of these components together in a way that can't be obtained with single-threaded browsers of today.

Might not this be leading towards the Google Desktop of tomorrow?

Thanks Tim
--Dietrich

I agree with your points Dietrich.

Firefox has nothing to worry about.

However this does present a long-term threat to Windows and Office. In future I can see OEM's selling notebooks and desktops with zero software costs. An installed lite version of Linux with audio/video apps and Chrome installed to utilize Google apps for all the rest. The browser will be the desktop.

MS Office has nothing to fear but MS Office itself.

Office 2007 has been an insult to dedicated users going back to before the Office 97 edition (really starting with the Word 4 exodus from WordPerfect) wherein there has been a steady improvement of the scope of function but equally consistent and familiar control set. Suddenly all of that has been ripped away from power users who are finding themselves moving their hands away from the keyboard and reaching for the mouse to do some usually easy formatting change using keyboard shortcuts. (Yes I know that Office 2007 has retained the ability to use the Alt keyboard strokes, but no help is provided in choosing say the third or fourth keystroke before a dialog is presented for the function which usually provides the visual queue for those without photographic memory.)

I don't think that MS understands any longer how important it is to power users of word processing programs who have heavy-duty typing chores (articles, manuscripts, IOM's, etc. that are often hundreds of pages long) to be able to keep your hands on the keyboard as much as possible and to move away to a mouse as little as possible. If you have lived long enough to have gone through the WordPerfect to Word transition, then you will know that the biggest obstacle to moving from the de facto standard was the need to use the mouse too frequently to format text. MS got around this by supporting the frequently used WordPerfect keyboard shortcuts some of which persisted into Office 2003. I support a lot of Macintosh users and have yet to see one of these folks migrate over to the new Apple office products largely for this reason. There are some really great new features but they come with too steep a learning curve and right-handed people suddenly feel left-handed for too long.

How does this relate to the current topic?

As a corporate IT professional responsible for support for thousands of clients, I have to look at new products very carefully in terms of not only the new functions added but also how well suited they are for well-established user who knows nothing of closed or open source or cares less. They simply have jobs to do, usually with too little time and too much pressure. We are now between two chairs as the saying goes. The older generation of users of modern computing systems (post Apple Mac Classic/Windows 3/Novell Netware) still represent the bulk of total users today. Most are resisting agnostic (cross-platform) computing changes because life and work are simply too full of other more important things to do. I'd be out on the street looking for work if I suddenly switched everyone from MS Office to OpenOffice. But then I am getting the flip side by having to rip MS Office 2007 out of every new desktop and notebook that I deploy and replace it with Office 2003.

Therefore, IT professionals are now in a bind about what to do about things like cloud computing and what to do about that unwelcomed OpenOffice installer that ends up on many desktops when a Java update is performed. Google has to be careful about going "a bridge too far" by moving at too rapid a pace for fear of being outpaced by someone else or being driven too hard by their own zeal. They have already changed the world for the better with so many of their products. I for one think that the industry needs a bit of a breather and to perhaps capitalize a bit on work just finished last month. The OpenSource gang might actually benefit a lot from this too as the business could become less polarized. But that is simply not in our nature.

I believe that things have gotten too divided in the industry just as they seem to have throughout our country. These deep divisions with their often unbridgeable schisms have led to a huge amount of waste of every measure. Too much time, not enough time. Too little money, too much money. Hungry, obese. Happy, depressed. Democrat, Republican. Open source, closed source. Too much progress, too little progress. Pro Life, Pro Choice.

How did this happen?

Nice idea Google. But will someone please turn off the bubble machine for a while!

I have to agree Anonymous.

People generally stick with what they know. Even if it's contrary to their best interests. It boggles the mind why anyone would tie their own data to a third party via format lock-in. Those who choose this must forever pay a 'toll' to work with their own documents.

I never thought that Google's Chrome would be adopted in the enterprise.

After reading Google's TOS it's now a foregone conclusion that no company will use it. Here is why;

"11.1 You retain copyright and any other rights that you already hold in Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content, you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free and non-exclusive licence to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content that you submit, post or display on or through the Services. This licence is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the Services and may be revoked for certain Services as defined in the Additional Terms of those Services."

No company would ever agree to such terms.