High expectations from Google Chrome

Some are calling Google’s new browser Chrome an “Internet Explorer killer.” Others venture
further and call it a “Windows killer.” Whether Google’s newly launched
browser has Microsoft quaking is unclear, but there’s no doubt that Google is serious about
“organizing the world’s information”—and is prepared to shake up the
status quo in the process.

It should come as little surprise that Google is entering the Web
browser market. The search heavyweight already has a substantial stake
in our online activities. Search, check! E-mail, check! Office
documents, check! The list of Web applications offered by Google is
both long and varied. With its goal of providing all of our online
needs, it makes perfect sense that Google would step up and provide a
Web browser built to accommodate its applications. With Chrome, Google
is betting that more of us will move more of our computing from
desktops to online, relying on the vast data centers known as “the
cloud.” But can Google’s Web browser single handedly entice us to dump a
favorite Web browser and our computer’s operating system?

Let’s start with the operating system. What’s your favorite flavor?
Windows, OS X, Linux? Whichever your allegiance, for at least the next
several years, you’ll need an operating system to boot your computer
and store the applications that are still too large and unwieldy to run
from inside the cloud. Take iTunes, Photoshop, or PowerPoint. While
online equivalents exist, they just can’t match the processing power
and functionality that come from the applications you run from your
computer’s operating system.

Segmenting Online Activities

And, while Google Chrome’s strength comes in its ability to segment
online activities—an open tab playing a live video stream won’t slow
down the remainder of your Web browsing—it still needs an operating
system at its foundation. For evidence that Google Chrome is not yet
ready to replace an operating system, consider the browser’s
limitations at launch. Despite two years of hard work, Chrome can’t run
without Windows and it won’t run at all on Apple’s OS X or Linux.

Then comes the question of Chrome’s potential for wresting market
share from Google’s rivals. Can Google really launch a new browser and
expect to grab some of Internet Explorer’s 72% Web browser market share
and Firefox’s 20%? Chrome certainly started off strong. On its opening
days, according to analysts at Lehman Brothers, free downloads reached
an astounding 2% of the market. Lehman predicts that the new browser
could reach 15%-20% market share in just two years. In other words,
it’s likely to be big, but not dominant.

What’s more, Google Chrome is not yet proven as a revolutionary Web
browser. Google technicians emphasize that its architecture is
different, and predict that it will handle computing intensive software
applications better than its rivals. But most of the Web surfers who
downloaded it on its first day came to face to face with a bare-bones
browser with few of the add-ons and plug-ins available on the others.

Brand of Gold

What Chrome can boast is the Google brand. While not everything
Google touches turns to shareholder gold, its brand works wonders. The
company could launch a new brand of laundry detergent, and we’d likely
clear grocery store shelves of the stuff. You can bet that Google’s
fans will jump at the chance to download a Google-branded browser, so
they can check their Gmail, look-up their Google Maps, and search for
laundry detergent on Google.com.

It’s our infatuation with the Google brand, more than the technology
inside, that will boost Chrome’s market share and further extend Google
in our daily Web activities. As for being a Windows or Internet
Explorer killer, don’t count on it.

Article sourced from eguru

Originally posted at Business Week