Daily Archives: September 2, 2008

Google pokes a sharp stick in Microsoft’s eye

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You may have seen the news that Google is launching its own (open source) browser, codenamed Chrome. According to the company blog,

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today’s complex web applications much better. By keeping each tab in an isolated “sandbox”, we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power the next generation of web applications that aren’t even possible in today’s browsers.

In reality, this takes us back to the original threat/promise of Netscape — the thing that threatened Microsoft so much that it set out to destroy Netscape. This was the idea that the browser was destined to become the key piece of software — almost an operating system in its own right.

Google Chrome takes up that idea, and holds out the promise of making it a reality. As Nick Carr puts it, Chrome

promises a similar leap in the capacity of the cloud to run applications speedily, securely, and simultaneously. Indeed, it is the first browser built from the ground up with the idea of running applications rather than displaying pages. It takes the browser’s file-tab metaphor, a metaphor reflecting the old idea of the web as a collection of pages, and repurposes it for application multitasking. Chrome is the first cloud browser.

See the exposition in Google’s Comic Book for an outline of the thinking that went into Chrome. It’s basically the first multi-threaded browser.

This is an important strategic move by Google. To quote Carr again,

Google is motivated by something much larger than its congenital hatred of Microsoft. It knows that its future, both as a business and as an idea (and Google’s always been both), hinges on the continued rapid expansion of the usefulness of the Internet, which in turn hinges on the continued rapid expansion of the capabilities of web apps, which in turn hinges on rapid improvements in the workings of web browsers.

To Google, the browser has become a weak link in the cloud system – the needle’s eye through which the outputs of the company’s massive data centers usually have to pass to reach the user – and as a result the browser has to be rethought, revamped, retooled, modernized…

I’ve no doubt that this development will be presented in the mainstream media as Google’s “attempt to capture the browser market”. That would be a misconception IMHO. By making Chrome open source Google is ensuring that any browser that seeks to stay competitive has to take up the multi-threading idea. Which will make cloud computing even more pervasive. Which will further increase Google’s importance. As a strategy, it’s fiendishly clever.

And just in case the folks in Cupertino are sniggering, this is a harbinger of things to come on the mobile phone front too. Google has sussed that the (closed) iPhone will be difficult to beat, so its attack is based on an open platform (Android). Smart.

Many thanks to Gerard for the original link (even though he hates the Comic Book!)

LATER: I can’t run Chrome because the first beta release only runs under Windows Vista (if you please), but TechCrunch has been using it and likes it a lot.

STILL LATER: Kate Greene has a useful overview in Tech Review. And the Register published a perceptive piece by Tim Anderson.

Breaking with convention(s)

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I thought I was unshockable, but the news that there were 15,000 accredited journalists at the DNC took me aback. It leads one to ask: where’s the value they add? The answer is: nowhere. This was brought home very forcibly when I was able to watch Bill Clinton’s entire speech on YouTube — and then compare it with the little soundbitten excerpts relayed by the mainstream TV channels. Now that I can see this stuff for myself, I don’t need media folks on extravagant per diems to ‘interpret’ it for me.

Jeff Jarvis feels the same and has written a great column on the subject. Sample:

Nothing happens at the conventions. They are carefully staged spin theatre. The only reason for all these journalists to travel to Denver and St Paul is ego. They feel important for being there and their publications feel important for sending them. But their bylines matter little to readers.

We simply don’t need all their coverage of the conventions. Thanks to the internet anyone, anywhere, can read the best coverage of the top few news organisations. On Google News you’ll find thousands of articles devoted to the same stories, most telling us little we didn’t know or couldn’t have guessed. Go to YouTube or network sites and you can watch the speeches yourself.

Footnote: in the 1980s I covered some of the UK Party Conferences and observed, with astonishment, the size of the media contingent. The BBC, for example, usually sent about 120 people. And, in those days, most of the Corporation’s senior executives came down for a day or two to “sniff the air”, as it were (and stay in the most expensive hotels). It was ludicrous even then but conceivably could be justified because it was the only way of transmitting the proceedings to the public. But those days are gone.