Why Is Google Turning Chrome Into An Operating System?

from the slow-down dept

There have been rumors for years that Google might someday release its own operating system, but the announcement that it's turning the Chrome browser into an operating system is an odd duck for a variety of reasons (amusingly, the "Google browser" was also rumored for years before Chrome showed up). Why is it odd?

• Google already has an operating system in Android. While that was initially focused on mobile devices, it's already being expanded to netbooks, so turning that into a more complete operating system seems like the way to go.
• Chrome itself still needs a ton of work. I've tried using it, and it's crazy buggy and so unstable -- I simply gave up and went back to Firefox. Jumping from just browser functionality to a full on OS before the browser code is really stable seems like a big leap.
• The idea of turning a browser into an operating system has been around since the days of Netscape (folks there used to talk about how it was making Windows obsolete), but reality has proven otherwise. In fact, it was partly Netscape's desire to take down Windows by making Netscape more OS-like that caused Netscape to get so bloated as to be nearly useless.
• Why now? Why an OS? Part of the appeal of the growth of the web itself (and Google with it) is the fact that it's made the whole operating system less and less integral to the computing experience. With the move towards more of a "cloud" based world (which Google has been a big part of driving) there just isn't as much value in the operating system as much as in the past. So why jump on that bandwagon now?
• Given all of the above, it just seems like a confused strategy. There will likely be conflicts between Android and Chrome and consumer confusion as well, not to mention worries from folks who just want Chrome to be a simple, competent browser.

Perhaps Google can route around all of these issues, but at a first pass... it just seems like a confusing direction for Google to go in.

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Google's Browser Is A Warning Shot At Windows, Not At Internet Explorer

from the browser-wars-get-a-new-entrant dept

About four years ago there were all sorts of rumors that Google was getting ready to enter the browser wars with its own offering, most likely built on Mozilla's code. However, after years of nothing (and an increasingly close relationship between Mozilla and Google), many had thought that idea was dead. Apparently not. After some leaks of a comic book (a comic book?!?) detailing the new Google browser found their way to the web, Google quickly admitted that it is, indeed, getting into the browser business, releasing a brand new open source browser, called Google Chrome.

Rather than being built on Mozilla, as many expected, it's been built on top of WebKit, which is also the core of Apple's Safari browser -- but which Google was also using for its own mobile browser. In the end, this isn't all that surprising. While many will interpret it as Google trying to take on Microsoft in the browser market, in reality, this is probably a lot more about Google trying to help everyone move beyond the operating system market. As we first suggested four years ago when rumors of a Google browser first came around, Google knows that the way to beat Microsoft is to become the operating system for the internet, and you do that by relegating the actual OS obsolete. And, these days, the path to doing that is through the browser.

So, yes, this is a shot at Microsoft -- but not at Internet Exporer. It's a shot at Windows.

That doesn't mean Google Chrome will be successful, but a quick look at the features itself show that the features it highlights (being able to run apps separately, better memory management, etc.) are the sorts of things that allow people to make browser-based apps much more useful, rather than feeling the need to rely on client-side applications. People have predicted for years that we're getting closer to a world where all computing can be done over the network, and it looks like Google is trying to push that process right along.

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Wait... AOL Was Still Making A Netscape Browser?

from the those-7-users-must-be-upset dept

While AOL's purchase of Time Warner is often considered one of the biggest M&A blunders of all time (and I'd still argue that the problem was in the execution, not the concept), it's at least worth pointing out that prior to that acquisition, AOL made another huge blunder in purchasing Netscape for over $4 billion dollars in 1998, just as Microsoft's Internet Explorer was finally taking over Netscape's marketshare (AOL apparently believes in the buy high, sell low philosophy). This seemed odd, even at the time, as AOL had long been using a modified version of Microsoft's Internet Explorer as its browser of choice (even back when IE was awful compared to Netscape). Even after the acquisition, AOL continued to use IE as its browser choice, and about the only thing that Netscape was good for was allowing AOL to sue Microsoft for antitrust violations. Microsoft eventually paid $750 million to AOL to settle the charges, leading many to assume that AOL was then going to kill off Netscape. While Mozilla (which was effectively spun out of Netscape) continued to gain traction, it made little sense for AOL to keep offering a "Netscape" browser, even if built on Mozilla code. Yet, in 2004 we were surprised to hear that AOL was still releasing a new Netscape browser. Since then, we'd pretty much forgotten that AOL actually offered Netscape as a browser and had assumed that it had been killed off. While that may have been effectively true, the reality was that the company was still working on a Netscape browser... until now. AOL has officially announced that it will be ending support for the Netscape browser for the six or seven people who still use it. While it won't impact very many people, it certainly is an "end of an era" type moment. While there may be some post mortems to suggest that Microsoft "killed" Netscape, the reality is that bad strategic decisions at Netscape (wanting to charge for the browser, getting distracted with other projects, bloat, bloat, bloat) were more to blame for its real demise a decade ago.

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