Google's approach to Chrome is somewhat unique in that it developed the product as a "modern operating system for web applications" rather than as an application that runs under a traditional OS. Web browser market share-really, usage share-is hard to measure, but according to a median measurement of various market watchers, Chrome controls 11 percent of the browser market and is the number three browser overall, behind IE (52 percent) and Firefox (26 percent), but well ahead of Safari (5 percent) and Opera (2.5 percent). That is simply incredible growth, about 300 percent since January of this year. By mid-2010, Chrome had over 70 million active users, and as of now, the figure is a whopping 120 million users. But those numbers have gone up dramatically since then. Chrome web browserĪt its event a year ago, Google said that Chrome had jumped to over 40 million active users, a figure I put in perspective by noting that Chrome accounted for barely 3 percent of all web browsers in use worldwide, behind even Safari. But first, let's look at what Google announced this week, with an eye towards understanding how this impacts Microsoft, its products, and its customers. I'll get to some more direct Microsoft comparisons in a moment. I see a company that suddenly doesn't have the cheapest and most accessible solutions not know how to react to a competitor that is out-Microsofting it. On the increasingly defensive Microsoft side of the fence, I see a disbelief that the ways of the past aren't working any more, when in fact they never really worked at all outside of a few core markets. right again, and I've been saying that for years. When Google says that the future of computing is connected and mobile. When Google says that no major new non-web applications have been created in, well, forever, they're right. On the other hand, this is what I've always asked for. Only this time it's coming from a company, Google, that can actually make it happen, thanks to its ever-increasing cash hoard and a Terminator-like insistence on bringing its idea of the future to fruition, damn the costs. On the one hand, I see Netscape reborn, promising to relegate Windows and its aging infrastructure to the dustbin of history. So I watch what Google is doing here, and a combined sense of dread and excitement sets in. It's perhaps instructive to note that the company hasn't reset its platforms direction as completely since that time. (Historical footnote: When Microsoft began its NT project in 1989, that was the point. Too, I've championed the need for Microsoft-or, really, any platforms company-to simply turn its back on the past and start fresh with something new, built from the ground up for today's users' needs. As many of you know, I've been an ardent supporter of cloud computing since it became a term, and I moved my email, contacts, and calendar management out of the Outlook tar pits and up to Google services years ago and have never looked back. I watched this week's Google event live on You Tube but tried to resist immediately writing about my reactions. ( Read my Google Chrome OS Preview for the details.) This week, Google expanded on its plans, provided a new roadmap for its fledgling OS and padding out the supporting services that it feels will put it over the top. A year ago, Google announced its Chrome OS project, ushering in a new front in its war on established OS vendors like Microsoft and Apple, one that is based on the web and web applications.
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