http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_10365201
With Chrome, Google launches new browser war against Microsoft
CHROME TAKES AIM AT MICROSOFT'S IE
By Brandon Bailey
Mercury News
09/02/2008
In the ongoing war for Internet users' eyes and wallets, search giant Google on Tuesday unveiled a shiny new Web browser that it hopes will lure users away from Microsoft's Internet Explorer — and bolster Google's lucrative online advertising and applications business as well.
Google says its new Chrome browser, launched just a week after Microsoft unveiled an updated version of Internet Explorer, is designed to be faster, easier, more stable and more secure in an era when users are increasingly turning to the Web to run complex applications — from watching video to crunching data and running other sophisticated programs that were once housed exclusively within a PC's hard drive.
The new browser has a single box to type in search keywords and Internet addresses. It's designed with "tabs" that access individual Web sites independently, so if one stalls it doesn't crash the others. And like the new version of Microsoft's browser, it offers an "incognito" feature that lets users surf online without storing cookies or a history of which sites they visited.
Although Google claims Chrome is faster than its competition, some early reviewers — including the Mercury News — were not convinced. But all found features they liked, especially its use of tabs.
For months, Microsoft executives have made no secret of their desire to carve out a bigger share of the online advertising business that is Google's bread and butter.
Google, in turn, has introduced online word processing and spreadsheet applications that compete with Microsoft's desktop software.
And for the past two years, Google executives said they have been working on developing a browser — a project that Sundar Pichai, vice president for product development, called a "huge investment" toward Google's evolution "from a search company to a search, ads and applications company." He declined to specify how much money or staff time was devoted to the effort.
The new browser incorporates some open-source software used in Apple's Safari browser and Mozilla Foundation's Firefox, and Chrome is being released as open-source code, so others can modify it or use it to develop other programs
It's not the first time someone has challenged Microsoft's browser, which became the market leader after a bruising battle with then-rival Netscape in the 1990s. And although they mostly shied away from criticizing Microsoft on Tuesday, Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin acknowledged they wouldn't mind ending the giant software maker's dominance in the field.
"We want to see more choices," said Brin, after noting that more than 70 percent of Internet users currently use Explorer to navigate the Web.
More competition will lead to more innovation and improved features in all Web browsers, Brin added. But he and Page acknowledged it could also benefit their company, which powers nearly two-thirds of all Internet searches and sells advertising keyed to those searches.
Faster browsing can translate into more searches, Page said: "We would like you to do more searches."
Industry analysts said that's the key to understanding why Google is getting into the browsing market. The company is making Chrome available as a free download and said it may consider agreements with computer manufacturers to offer it pre-installed on new machines.
Browsers by themselves are not big revenue generators, but they are the vehicle that delivers computer users to search engines and other online applications, said Sheri McLeish, an analyst at the Forrester market research firm.
"This is really a way for Google to build out its strategy for taking over the desktop from Microsoft," she said.
Wall Street analysts said the strategy makes sense.
By developing its own browser, Google can design it to maximize the features of its other online applications, UBS analyst Ben Schachter wrote in a note to investors Tuesday. He suggested the browser may also give Google more data on users' habits and trends, which it can use to deliver more targeted advertising.
"There is market demand for a browser that is speedier, simpler, safer and stabler than IE," added Citigroup analyst Mark Mahaney, pointing out that nearly 20 percent of computer users have adopted the Firefox browser.
But Schachter warned that Google has launched other products with great fanfare, and not all have been hits. "Before we get too excited, let's see the product and Google's ability to push it," he advised.
Contact Brandon Bailey at bbailey@mercurynews.com or (408) 920-5022.
Showing posts with label Safari. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Safari. Show all posts
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Analyzing Google's "Android"
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.aspx?feed=FT&Date=20071106&ID=7772032
Analyzing Google's "Android"
If you can measure a new technology's popularity by the number of companies trying to attach their names to it, then Google's new Android mobile-phone platform is a big deal.
By the time I left the office yesterday, I'd heard from the developer of Android's voice-command software, a company providing fonts for Android, a publicist for a competing Linux mobile software effort, yet another mobile-Linux software developer, a firm that sells cheap international cell-phone calling, the Public Knowledge think tank (which basically opined "Yay, Google!") and CTIA, the wireless industry's trade association ("If ever there was evidence that so-called 'net neutrality' rules were not needed, today's news is it").
This kind of breathless anticipation says something--and not just that a lot of people are unhappy with their cell phones. Google's past successes have rightly led people to expect great things from the Mountain View, Calif., company, and now it has given itself one of the toughest tasks imaginable: reinventing the mobile phone with this new, open-source software.
Without prototype phones to test or even pictures of the Android software to study, it's hard to say how well Google might live up to these expectations. But a few things seem clear about this project--formally known as the Open Handset Alliance--from the limited material published so far, press coverage and a phone interview yesterday with Google's Rich Miner, who helps run the company's wireless strategy:
* Although dozens of companies are listed as partners on the Android site, Google started this work and continues to orchestrate the project, Miner said. This isn't a phone by committee, nor is Google inviting the world to inspect and edit the Android source code just yet--though people will have that right, one absent from name-brand phone software, once this platform ships.
* This project also incorporates many contributions from people and companies. For example, its music- and video-playback software comes from a developer called PacketVideo. And Miner said that Android's Web browser is built on the same open-source WebKit software as the Safari browser in Mac OS X and the iPhone. ("Next week, we'll be releasing all of the improvements we've made to WebKit," Miner said--meaning that if Apple incorporates these revisions into Safari, the next iPhone could itself be a bit of a Google phone.)
* The Android software is written to run on cheap handsets, not just flashy, high-end smartphones. Miner said it allows for a variety of input methods, including conventional numeric keypads, QWERTY keyboards and touchscreens. Handwriting recognition is not built in, although Android's open-source license means anybody could add it later.
* The interface remains a secret. Miner would only describe it as "consumer-friendly and state-of-the-art," but said the software-development toolkit to be released on Monday would include a working, preview copy of the Android interface. Considering what Google has done to make Web search, e-mail and mapping--to name a few things--both powerful and simple, cautious optimism seems justified here.
* Miner said Android will be written to allow synchronization to a computer's address book, calendar and other personal-info-management programs. But it will be up to other companies to write appropriate sync software.
* The hardware manufacturers listed as Android partners have all made significant contributions to phone design recently: HTC, LG, Motorola and Samsung. The supporting U.S. carriers, Sprint and T-Mobile, have not done as well despite offering more liberal usage terms than AT&T and Verizon (T-Mobile unlocks its phones to allows use with other carriers after the first 90 days of a contract, and Sprint doesn't prohibit broad categories of Internet use with its mobile broadband service). For more on this angle, see veteran tech writer Glenn Fleishman's analysis of Google's partners in the Mac newsletter TidBits.
* Any wireless carrier that adopts the Android software could, however, build a traditional, locked phone with it. During a conference call yesterday afternoon, Android director Andy Rubin and Google CEO Eric Schmidt each said this software's open-source license requires them to offer that freedom--although Schmidt called that "both possible and highly unlikely," in that a locked-down Android phone would only disappoint customers.
* While we'll be able to see what the Android interface looks like starting next week, nobody is predicting the arrival of any Android-powered phones before the second half of next year.
While we all wait, what do you hope to see come out of this Android project?
By Rob Pegoraro
November 6, 2007
Category: Gadgets
Analyzing Google's "Android"
If you can measure a new technology's popularity by the number of companies trying to attach their names to it, then Google's new Android mobile-phone platform is a big deal.
By the time I left the office yesterday, I'd heard from the developer of Android's voice-command software, a company providing fonts for Android, a publicist for a competing Linux mobile software effort, yet another mobile-Linux software developer, a firm that sells cheap international cell-phone calling, the Public Knowledge think tank (which basically opined "Yay, Google!") and CTIA, the wireless industry's trade association ("If ever there was evidence that so-called 'net neutrality' rules were not needed, today's news is it").
This kind of breathless anticipation says something--and not just that a lot of people are unhappy with their cell phones. Google's past successes have rightly led people to expect great things from the Mountain View, Calif., company, and now it has given itself one of the toughest tasks imaginable: reinventing the mobile phone with this new, open-source software.
Without prototype phones to test or even pictures of the Android software to study, it's hard to say how well Google might live up to these expectations. But a few things seem clear about this project--formally known as the Open Handset Alliance--from the limited material published so far, press coverage and a phone interview yesterday with Google's Rich Miner, who helps run the company's wireless strategy:
* Although dozens of companies are listed as partners on the Android site, Google started this work and continues to orchestrate the project, Miner said. This isn't a phone by committee, nor is Google inviting the world to inspect and edit the Android source code just yet--though people will have that right, one absent from name-brand phone software, once this platform ships.
* This project also incorporates many contributions from people and companies. For example, its music- and video-playback software comes from a developer called PacketVideo. And Miner said that Android's Web browser is built on the same open-source WebKit software as the Safari browser in Mac OS X and the iPhone. ("Next week, we'll be releasing all of the improvements we've made to WebKit," Miner said--meaning that if Apple incorporates these revisions into Safari, the next iPhone could itself be a bit of a Google phone.)
* The Android software is written to run on cheap handsets, not just flashy, high-end smartphones. Miner said it allows for a variety of input methods, including conventional numeric keypads, QWERTY keyboards and touchscreens. Handwriting recognition is not built in, although Android's open-source license means anybody could add it later.
* The interface remains a secret. Miner would only describe it as "consumer-friendly and state-of-the-art," but said the software-development toolkit to be released on Monday would include a working, preview copy of the Android interface. Considering what Google has done to make Web search, e-mail and mapping--to name a few things--both powerful and simple, cautious optimism seems justified here.
* Miner said Android will be written to allow synchronization to a computer's address book, calendar and other personal-info-management programs. But it will be up to other companies to write appropriate sync software.
* The hardware manufacturers listed as Android partners have all made significant contributions to phone design recently: HTC, LG, Motorola and Samsung. The supporting U.S. carriers, Sprint and T-Mobile, have not done as well despite offering more liberal usage terms than AT&T and Verizon (T-Mobile unlocks its phones to allows use with other carriers after the first 90 days of a contract, and Sprint doesn't prohibit broad categories of Internet use with its mobile broadband service). For more on this angle, see veteran tech writer Glenn Fleishman's analysis of Google's partners in the Mac newsletter TidBits.
* Any wireless carrier that adopts the Android software could, however, build a traditional, locked phone with it. During a conference call yesterday afternoon, Android director Andy Rubin and Google CEO Eric Schmidt each said this software's open-source license requires them to offer that freedom--although Schmidt called that "both possible and highly unlikely," in that a locked-down Android phone would only disappoint customers.
* While we'll be able to see what the Android interface looks like starting next week, nobody is predicting the arrival of any Android-powered phones before the second half of next year.
While we all wait, what do you hope to see come out of this Android project?
By Rob Pegoraro
November 6, 2007
Category: Gadgets
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