John Doerr Disclaims Rumored GBrowser

iseff writes "Contrary to the rumors which have been circulating, John Doerr (VC and early investor in Google) told the Web 2.0 conference that although he believes in another browser war, Google won't be a part of it. Then again, he did say he didn't know everything that goes on at Google, even though he's on the board. Now it makes you wonder why Google registered gbrowser.com?"

Comments

I'm not convinced

[rafikki]

If you look at all the new programs they've been putting out lately, the deskbar, the toolbar, the new Gmail Notifier etc. and realize that all that stuff could be very usefully integrated into a web browser... not to mention some of the stuff floating around in their Labs section. I suspect that's not the last word we'll here on a new browser.

Re:I'm not convinced

[nine-times]

I agree. They could easily take Firefox, add a few extensions that tie in specifically with their services, and rebrand it "gbrowser".

Of course, I'm also not sure it's very worth their while at this point. Firefox's default search is Google. People have already created a Google/Gmail related extensions for Firefox without Google needing to lift a finger. As long as the open-source community is so supportive of Google, it might fall under the category of 'why bother?'

Re:I'm not convinced

[marcello_dl]

A very interesting idea, I was thinking something similar that doesn't involve mining users' history but let them give a feedback rating on search results. Statistical analysis could isolate users who try to cheat marking crap sites as useful.

That would give a lesson to those sites trying to exploit pagerank to serve useless content.

Options

[Kralizec]

Now it makes you wonder why Google registered gbrowser.com?

Because every business likes to keep its options open?

Isn't it obvious?

[rsrsharma]

Now it makes you wonder why Google registered gbrowser.com?

Um, isn't it obvious? Can you think of what the public's reaction would be if a company released a "Google browser" which contained spyware/adware? Plus the possiblity that they might want to make a browser in the future? After all, when you're a big company like Google, you've gotta cover your ass or it'll get sued to hell.

Browser War

[pete-classic]

If they believe in the browser war, why do they only support IE?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I belive that the tool bar and the gmail notifier are Windows/IE only.

-Peter

and no Netflix/Tivo deal, either...

[javaxman]

I mean, really, you can believe what you want... but it would be a bit foolish to trust a businessman !

Not that I see Google making a browser ( I don't... maybe they'd pick up a cobrand an existing one, if anything ), but this guy's statement could just be possitioned to throw people off of an otherwise secret business strategy... I seem to recall Netflix and Tivo denying their deal quite firmly, for example...

Cheaper than a trademark lawsuit...

[drmike0099]

Registering and keeping your own names out of everyone else's hands is a much simpler and cheaper way to do it, rather than getting into nasty, expensive lawsuits later on over who gbrowser.com is owned by. How much did the Lindows lawsuit cost MS, both in terms of $$ and public good will?

Re:Cheaper than a trademark lawsuit...

[leonmergen]

Are you thinking about GTK or Gnome when you hear about GMail ?

No, it's all a matter of branding... and for google, it's way easier to keep everything generic - so GBrowser would be the best name for their browser.

Re:Cheaper than a trademark lawsuit...

[drinkypoo]

Much like money, it is possible to have negative amounts of good will. The technical term for it is "ill will" :P (Kind of like "bad stuff" points.)

Modifications to Mozilla/Firefox

[Bravo_Two_Zero]

Wouldn't it be just as logical that they may be adding additional firepower to the Mozilla/Firefox development at some point? I won't get rich on the quality of my predictions, but that would make a degree of sense. Or, at least, they might be developing some google-specific extensions intended to rock our world. Heck, if I was smart enough to know what those are, I'd be working at google!

Re:Browser?

[gmuslera]

I'm a spanish speaker so sometimes i miss some details in english expressions, but a browser don't need to be a desktop web browser like IE/Mozilla/Opera. Something that could be interesting is a site that gives an overview of different google sites, an integrated view of their services or portal site and maybe that could be called that way.

Of course, they also could want to avoid some porn site to use that domain name to trick visitors thinking that it as a "door" to google.

Google employees: 20% projects

[ndogg]

Google employees have these little side projects that they call 20% Projects. If there is going to be a browser, I'm betting it's going to one of these 20% Project based off of Mozilla/Gecko.

Or it could be the result of a new group that was formed at Google to address the issue of their OSS involvement. All I know about this is that they want to become more involved in various OSS projects to address the question of people asking "You use so much OSS, why don't you contribute much back?" Believe me, they're very grateful to the OSS community, and they do feel a large obligation to give back. It's just that many of the engineers/developers haven't had the time.