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Google Chrome -- a new browser coming (in beta) in a few hours

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mouser:
from www.webware.com:

Mozilla CEO John Lilly on Tuesday waxed philosophical about the release of Google's new Web browser, Chrome, despite it signaling an attempt by the search giant--and Mozilla's major financier--to become its biggest competitor.
..
Mozilla and Google have had a long and very fruitful relationship. Google is the default search engine on the Mozilla Firefox browser, and the company pays Mozilla large sums for the privilege: $56 million of the $66 million that Mozilla Corp. made in 2006.

But Lilly, writing in his blog, said he welcomed the competition posed by Google. Lilly said Mozilla would continue its financial relationship with Google until 2011 and would continue to work with the search giant on technical collaborations such as crash reports system Breakpad.

Paul Kim, vice president of marketing for Mozilla, said that Google staff would be allowed to continue to contribute to the Mozilla Foundation's projects. "As a 100 percent open-source project, we welcome contributions to Firefox from everyone," he said.
--- End quote ---


I think it's quite possible what we are looking at here, from a business standpoint, is google covering its bases in the way that only a giant corporation with money to burn can. Recently we heard that google and mozilla agreed to continue for the time being their business arrangement where google massively funds firefox and firefox makes google the default search engine in the firefox browser.

It seems plausible that what google is doing with Chrome is basically saying to firefox: we have an alternative browser we can market and spend the money on.  i.e. they are covering their bases -- their goal is to dominate the search space -- if that means buying their way into the top browser then they will do that, but what if firefox demands too much money or changes their mind and decides to use a different search engine as their default (they can't really change search engines even if they wanted to now because they need google money).

Chrome may be the shot across the bow from google warning firefox not to think about trying to mess with having google as the default search engine.  So basically my guess is google won't push the new browser to hard as long as firefox stays in line.. But the threat will be that if firefox ever tries to stop partnering with google then google will go all out against firefox.  If true it's not exactly happy news. Or maybe i am just being conspiratorial.

mouser:
by the way -- does anyone know if there is a term in the field of commercial marketing where a company releases a product without the actual intention of spending much money marketing it -- but instead just to scare away or keep the competition in line, using the threat of large-scale marketing if a competitor tries to challenge them?

urlwolf:
scarecrow marketing :)
No idea, I just made that up.

allen:
I think it more likely they're trying to pick up some of the market that isn't yet using a respectable browser.  While that might be competition, in that Firefox too would like to snatch up these users, I see it not really undercutting them so much as presenting themselves as a more viable transition.

It has the advantage of being the property of a name, google, that is as well known as Microsoft--which by name familiarity alone may make for a less anxious transition than IE to Firefox.  When trying to get someone to use Opera or Firefox from IE, I've often found resistence because they want to know what the hell a firefox is and why it has such a silly name--often assuming it's some weird flybynight thing and I've been duped.  It's not as common now as it once was, but I still encounter this situation.

But tell them to switch to google's browser--I can see the conversation playing out already, with non-technical users who fumble with the Internet.  "I use google all the time, they have a browser? That makes sense... can I import all my favorites? How do I get it?"

I doubt Chrome will be a viable alternative to Firefox or Opera for power users who have been using/tweaking configuration/extension combinations for years, have a work flow they are comfortable with . . . I can easily see chrome taking market share from Internet Explorer, but not so much firefox.

cmpm:
It's Tuesday and still nothing. no download yet of this browser.
I've heard now it's going to be Wednesday.

Unless some knows of a link to download it.

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