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Google Chrome OEM Strategy To Take On IE
ruphus13 writes "In an effort to take on IE and make strong headway in its share of the browser market, Google is taking a page out of Microsoft's playbook and working on deals with PC OEMs to include Chrome in their devices. From the article: '[Google] is likely to pursue deals with major original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to put Chrome on their computers and devices. ... If Mozilla could get aggressive about this too, we could see Internet Explorer facing more serious competition than ever. ... Google, much more so than Mozilla, has enough global brand recognition, money, and savvy to make a big deal of this. ... Microsoft wooed Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway, Acer and many other companies into making its browser the default choice on Windows desktops. Chrome currently has just under one percent market share, according to NetApplications. That number could rise significantly through this effort. Mozilla doesn't have the kind of money required to get the significant deals in this space, but Google definitely does.'"
Chrome isn't ready for prime time ... not a good idea at this point.
Why not just get them to include firefox and google apps, giving something of more perceived value?
Sounds great in principal but hasn't the problem always been that Microsoft counters action like this by telling the manufacturers that if they ship competing software they will lose their OEM discounts for Windows? I am not completely up to date will the anti-trust judgements against Microsoft but assuming that this counter-attack hasn't been legally ruled out already, can't we expect Microsoft to do the same here?
I think more people know what firefox is, as the "browser that works better and has less viruses" to the general public.
Mozilla is relatively unknown to people outside of our little slashosphere.
There's nothing Intelligent about Intelligent Design.
That will be the ONLY thing to get the public to understand that the world is forced to break the web in order to look right for MSIE. Furthermore, a coordinated effort needs to be made to unite web developers to stop supporting Microsoft's intentional breaking of web standards.
"Get the Facts: The W3C is the organization that defines how the world wide web is supposed to work and every web browser maker tries to remain adherent to standards so that the internet runs smoothely... that is everyone except Microsoft with its billion-dollar-budget of programmers that somehow can't get it right."
I would find it interesting what Microsoft would tell the public in response to that. "We are Microsoft and we define the standards?"
"Microsoft wooed Dell, Compaq, HP, Gateway, Acer and many other companies into making its browser the default choice on Windows desktops."
Or rather, they just didn't install a second browser at all, since the only browser kinda HAS to be the default. I really doubt much wooing was involved.
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Last computer I bough came with Google toolbar, Google Earth and google Picassa installed. Last time I downloaded IrfanView, it came with Google toolbar bundled. When mu girlfriend (yes I DO have one) downloaded Adobe reader, it installed the freaking toolbar again... What's happening with this world? What's next, Apple installing Safari bundled with iTunes? oh wait...
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Remember, that without the browser, Google is nothing. Without ADs, Google is nothing. (unless they start to sell and market other things besides ads) So, I view this browser situation as a 2 edged sword. On one end, defining a new standard in high quality browsers, coupled with GEARS and a super fast Javascript engine, could usher in Javascript games, AJAX apps and so much more. This would, without a doubt grow Google AD revenued. However, on the other edge of the sword is the fear of the AD Blocker add on, that will no doubt block a lot of google ad revenue. The browser, which google depends, could turn into it's worse enemy. We have already seen this with Firefox's ad blocking add on. Some argue, that only savvy internet users activate it. however, if you use Ubuntu, the add on is installed by default. A way to ensure Google does not jeapordize their AD revenues is key. I think that would be pretty easy to get around, technologically speaking. Maybe that is why Google is not putting more resources into Chrome???
You don't, usually, start working on how you are going to distribute a product after you know it is ready for the market. You work on what you need to do to secure the distribution channels you want to have while you are getting the product ready, so when it is ready, those will be in place.
Presumably, Google has an idea of where it wants Chrome to go and a plan to get it there. If it doesn't then, sure, this discussion of OEM deals may be premature, but you certainly can't conclude that from the fact (which I certainly don't dispute, though I use Chrome for almost all of my home browsing now) that Chrome isn't ready today to be most people's sole browser.
Google is being an innovator in this field at the moment, and so I'm glad that they're positioned to get more "default" marketshare via OEMs.
It will push Microsoft to innovate with their own browser in order to keep their search engine hits up.
One feature that I expect to see in the release version of Chrome is video chat. They released a plug-in to make Firefox compatible with their Google Talk chat's new video feature, but I'm betting that functionality will come built-in to Chrome.
...because "hacker" sounds way sexier than "code drone."
I agree. I can't print documents without a header and footer (I can with Firefox, or even IE). I can't block images like with Firefox. There are things I like about Chrome, like that one tab acting funny or crashing does not affect the other tabs, or the downloading interface it has, or that it remembers my most frequently trafficked pages and makes that as my start page, or that I can move tabs around, or that new tabs expand locally etc. But I hate having to use multiple browsers just to block images, or print a page, or whatever.
Another ironic thing is, they create a browser so that Microsoft can't monopolize the viewing experience of the Google web page, but then they only release it on Microsoft's OS. I am typing at the moment in a Seamonkey browser on my Gnewsense (RMS-approved Ubuntu fork) box, if Chrome was released on Linux, maybe I'd be using it instead.
How about making it usable first. Let me know when there are plug ins. Specifically Flashblock. No flashblock, no browser.
Chrome isn't ready for prime time
And IE is? :)
"Punk [playaz] bailin' every time that I use Chrome" - Cypress Hill, "Till Death Comes"
Granted, B-Real is talking about firearms here, but good for Google. It'd be interesting to see browser usage stats on machines that ship with both IE and Chrome preinstalled, although it wouldn't surprise me to see IE retain a majority share, just on name recognition alone.
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For Google, anti-trust is playing with fire ---
--- and heading into what could be a very deep recession, I don't expect to see the new administration all gung-ho and ready to move against one of the bare handful of US industrials that is actually showing a pulse, paying dividends, a company with strong export sales and a AAA credit rating.
How is this insightful? Have we really forgotten the early 90s already?
Being the "old guy," I'll teach you some history. Netscape was THE browser for the first iteration of Windows 95. NO browser was bundled OR part of the OS, although AOL was often preinstalled. (I'm not sure you'd call that...thing that came with it a browser.) Basically everyone who used a browser ran Netscape (some ran Mosaic).
Then IE 3 came out (like most Microsoft software, versions 1 and 2 were too shoddy for actual use by human beings, even end users).
Microsoft made IE free to "compete" with Netscape. It still wasn't bundled with the OS until Windows 95 OSR 2.1 -- although it was installed along with Office and other MS apps. But you didn't HAVE to have IE on a Win95 system. That started with Windows 98.
Here's the thing: Netscape Navigator was then made free also, and it WAS bundled on many a PC maker's system. It's true Microsoft didn't *woo* anybody -- threats were more like it. Doesn't anybody remember the whole first antitrust thing?
I'd bet that Google is looking to target embedded platforms that will need a lightweight browser in ROM. This would include things like cell phones/PDAs, netbooks, notebooks with a pre-boot environment, etc. This is what Chrome was designed for from the start.
The biggest killer app of them all is television. Over the next few years, The US has an impending mass uptake of new, higher resolution televisions that are suitable for web browsing and other text dominant internet activities. We already have a selection of set-top boxes and game consoles to provide usable internet functions on TV. Internet enabled televisions will become commonplace in the not too distant future. These will be the products of choice for aging, wealthy, and (relatively) technologically illiterate boomers.
If Google can get its foot in the door to that and other embedded markets then they can compete without having to face MS directly. I expect that MS will not be able to revamp Pocket IE to make it capable enough to be a viable competitor to Chrome on a platform where a web browser has to have all the bells and whistles to satisfy users.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Considering Chrome will be in beta for the next two decades, I would like to believe that would complicate OEM deals.
Fact: Everything I say is fiction.
Seems kinda odd that google would donate 85 million dollars to mozilla foundation, then turn around and push their own browser. Sounds like they are not playing to win, but instead, playing to make ms lose.
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
In Safari's defence, I'm sure half those million+ results are in regards to land rovers hitting elephants and other African fauna.
863,000 +safari +crashes
728,000 +safari +crashes -elephant
697,000 +safari +crashes -elephant -lions
655,000 +safari +crashes -elephant -lions -banana
Apparently, there are many crashes involving elephants and lions which have been mistakenly added to these results. Also, it appears at least 40,000 crashes involved bananas - this warrants further investigation.
Considering Chrome has less than 1% adoption compared to IE's 70% or so adoption, and it has been out less than a year compared to IE decade or so, I would say having half the result of IE is positively abysmal.
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Since services like S&P began to define it as an industrial.
The six AAA rated industrial companies are Automatic Data Processing, Exxon Mobil Corporation, General Electric, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer Inc and Microsoft. In the early 1980s, there were more than 30 industrial companies with 'AAA' ratings. Microsoft joins select industrial club with S&P's AAA rating
S&P defines and tracks the performance of dozens of sub-sectors in the economy: Standard & Poors (S&P) Sector Indexes
S&P doesn't care if Spacely Space Sprockets employs only one visible engineer or technician. It doesn't even care what a sprocket is - or does - beyond a general sense of how it is produced and distributed and the role it plays in the economy.
They employ more lawyers than programmers!
More on a janitorial as well. Big Whoop.
Microsoft employs 94,000 people. It owns or leases 677 sites world-wide, 29 million square feet of real estate. It has subsidiaries in every country from A to Z. The programmer is never going to dominate the headcount in an organization that operates on such a scale. Fast Facts About Microsoft
How much outsourced programming staff could they have when they employ legal to bully 3rd party hardware companies to develop drivers for their new OS's?
Dear lord, spare me this.
You do not have to bully anyone to produce drivers for the OS that has 90% of your potential market - and Apple has a lock on damn near 10% of what remains.