Google's Chrome Ups the Ante

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Microsoft insists that even with the growth of cloud computing, users will still demand powerful applications and processing power in their own machines. At the same time, Microsoft has equipped its newest browser with features to throttle Google's exploding search market share. IE8 lets users block information that helps Google place more relevant ads, and it offers an improved Microsoft-oriented search toolbar. Still, the lofty promises surrounding Chrome do raise concerns at Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Wash. Dean Hachamovich, general manager of Internet Explorer, wonders if Google is embarking on a browser that will separate it, and its users, from the rest of Web traffic. "As they add things, what happens to everybody else?" he asks. "Is the Web going to become bifurcated? Trifurcated?"

An Ambitious Start

Google executives don't foresee such a schism, but instead predict that others may well borrow the most enticing features from the open-source program. The keys for Chrome, they say, are not a host of jazzy applications, but instead a system that provides speed, security, and easy-to-understand software applications. First-day reviews are mixed, with some reports of glitches and slow downloads. But if, with a few tweaks, Google can coax businesses and consumers to move more of their computing from the desktop onto the Web, the payoff in Google's core business—advertising—could be tremendous. A migration onto its clouds would provide Google with more places to collect data and to serve search ads. "Google believes that the more time people spend on the Internet and the more things they do on the Internet, the more that will benefit Google," says Nick Carr, author of the book The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google.

Google is starting off in browsers ambitiously. The company is launching Chrome, which it has been working on for two years, in 43 languages and 122 countries. (For now, it's available only for Windows machines—not Macs or Linux.) Most of the magic is hidden inside the system. Google engineers developed a multiprocessor architecture, which means that the browser can run separate applications in different tabs at the same time. So if one application crashes, the rest continue to perform.

Though rumors have swirled for years that Google was pursuing its own operating system or a browser, the venture still surprised many. That's because Google has had a close partnership with Mozilla, which manages the Firefox browser. Google's search pops up as Firefox's home page and is the main search engine.

Forsaking Firefox

During the past four years, Firefox has taken off, growing from zero market share to 20%, eating away at the dominance of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. As Firefox has taken off, so has Google's reach on the browser. So the fact that it went out on its own, rather than working with Firefox to overhaul the browser, underlines how important cloud computing is to Google's future. "[Firefox] had a set of priorities," says Sundar Pichai, Google's vice-president for product management. "We wanted to rethink the browser. You're better off writing something new…rather than imposing views on an organization like Firefox."

Early reviews point to drawbacks of the browser, including the lack of a way to manage bookmarks. Google admits that it's following its familiar pattern of "launch early and iterate." John Lilly, the chief executive of Mozilla, who has seen his share of upsets, says it's hard to gauge how popular Chrome can become. "The consumer Internet is a wild and wacky thing, I think that a lot of people will start experimenting right away with Chrome. But this is a story that will play out over weeks, months, and years, not hours and days."

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With Robert D. Hof in San Mateo, Calif.
Green is an associate editor for BusinessWeek.