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Google Chrome: For All Your Browsing (And Other) Needs
By Bizbox
If you haven't checked a computer over the past several days, then you may not have heard of Chrome, Google's new Web browser, which the search giant has built to compete with the big guns: The Mozilla Foundation's Firefox and, most dramatically, Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Much digital ink has been spilled over all things Chrome: its usability and accessibility, what it means for the Google-Microsoft war, and anything else conceivable. We thought we'd focus on (our corporate sister) Newsweek's take, which explores how Chrome can expand on cloud computing, as well as, in the newsweekly's words, "What Google's browser suggests about the way the search giant views the Web." It is, may we say, a way that could be particularly friendly to small businesses.
You are no doubt familiar with the concept of cloud computing, and with Google's suite of cloud computing software, from the email server Gmail to the word processor Google Docs and beyond--after all, we have not been shy about writing about cloud computing's upsides, cloud computing's downsides, cloud computing's future, and where Google stand in all of this (hint: at the forefront).
But Chrome moves Google, and cloud computing, several yards farther, if not longer. Chrome's genius, according to Newsweek, is to group Google's cloud computing software into an easy-to-use package. Chrome is a browser first; but in this aspect, it is also an operating system. In other words, its direct competitor may be Internet Explorer; but in one sense--and, down the road, certainly in an increasing sense--its looming rival is Windows.
Does this mean you should try Chrome? Well, not if you use an Apple--Chrome is only Windows-compliant for now (Google says they're working on an Apple version). And don't expect Internet Explorer to cede too much of its over-70% share of the browser market any time too soon.
That said, cloud computing is undoubtedly the way of the future. And it is also especially amenable to small businesses, in that it lets small groups of people with far-flung members create a virtual office with great ease and no overhead. Finally, as things stand now, Google appears to be taking the cloud computing lead. So it may be worth downloading Chrome and playing around with it: one day, you and your business may be using only it. We all may be using only it.
Comments (0)September 5, 2008 1:23 AM
