Fascinating, An IE 7 Tax

A major online retailer goes up against Microsoft's Internet Explorer. By charging a "tax" on users of IE7 for the extra cost of making their sites work with it.

Will be fascinating to see whether this either a) stimulates IE users to switch, b) convinces M$ to focus more on web-standards in future releases of IE. (Something they've been at the forefront of before.)

Mozilla Jetpack

Programming your browser in native web (html, css, javascript)

Here it comes. Gears on Android.

And here's some appreciation of it.

Run and read Dare (and indirectly Nick Carr)

Nick :

Google’s protean appearance is not a reflection of its core business. Rather, it stems from the vast number of complements to its core business

Dare :

So why is [Chrome] significant? It isn't because "Google Chrome is going to replace Windows" or some other such silliness. As it stands now, Google Chrome is a Windows based application whose most interesting features exist in other browsers. A Web browser cannot replace an operating system any more than an automobile can replace an Interstate highway. The significant end user innovation in Google Chrome is that it is bundled with Google Gears. This means that Google Chrome has a mechanism for delivering richer experiences to end users out of the box. Google can now use this as a carrot and a stick approach to convincing browser vendors to do what it wants. Google can make its sites work better together with Chrome + Gears (e.g. YouTube Uploader using Gears) which could lead to lost browser market share for competing browser vendors if this becomes a widespread practice among Google's offerings. Even if Google never does this, the implied threat is now out there.

Chrome will likely force Google's competitors to up their game with regards to adopting newer Web standards and features just to stay competitive. This is similar to what Google did with online mapping and Web mail, and what the Opera browser has been doing by pioneering features like "pr0n mode" and tabbed browsing. So even if Google loses because Chrome doesn't get massively popular, Google still wins because the user experience for browsing the Web has been improved. And at the end of the day, if more people are using the Web because the user experience is better across the board that's just fine for Google. The same way the fact that all online mapping experiences and Web mail experiences have improved across the board is also good for Google.

I wouldn't be as sanguine about the "replace Windows" bit as Dare is. Particularly not if I was Microsoft. Looking at Asus netbooks over the weekend I'm seeing lots of positive reviews and happiness with the Linux + browser + very cheap hardware package.

It looks to me as though we could easily be approaching, not exactly a "tipping point" (with all the notions of positive feedback that this implies), but at least a period of rapid transition, beyond which the standard or most common computing tool in our lives isn't a Windows PC running MS Office but a $200 - $300 netbook running free software. See all the PC makers playing catch up.

The standard price for this tool is way too low to charge an extra $50 - $100 for OS and Office Suite. And the browser-based email and office apps. will be fine for most users. The entire market for the traditional Microsoft software product, the generic "PC", is evaporating as we watch.

ZDNet is calling this Browser Wars 2.0 ...

I've been saying that browsers are not (and shouldn't be thought of) as a site for strategic competition. But it looks as though I may be wrong on this one.

The reason I thought that there was no room for competition there, is that I saw (and still see) standards (HTML, Javascript, CSS) rather than differentiation as dominating. There's no mileage in a slightly different HTML or scripting language.

All web-applications want to be runable on all browsers ... anything else is just suicide. And all browsers want to be able to run all applications ... and so ...

But I underestimated the part about a better experience for the users which isn't related to the browser content. Browser features such as speed, privacy, off-line caching, new UIs such as Enso-like "ubiquity". All the browser makers have demonstrated that they can create some excitement in these areas.

Also, what's becoming clearer is that "privacy modes" can disrupt the kind of cookie tracking which allows, say Google, to serve relevant adverts, which makes browser innovation in this area a direct attack on Google's revenue. (And so also makes us realize how much of an interest Google have here.)

So, I think I was still right about standards in web content (at least for the moment). But as the browser really starts to replace the desktop operating system it takes over a whole lot of other responsibilities as well. And there's clearly some room for differentiation there.

Cringley thinks Chrome is all about the danger of Microsoft making Ad-blocking in IE sufficiently good to hurt Google.

Haque meanwhile is wearing his rose-coloured Google glasses.

So Google want to own the browser too.

It's interesting to speculate why. Of course, one possibility is that someone in the hydra-headed Googleplex just started this as their 20% project and it got released.

Or maybe it's just a defensive move to protect web-standards (a Google "complement") against the possible encroachment by proprietory RIA front-ends like Flash and Silverlight? But why not just invest in Firefox or Webkit? Is this just Google's way of doing that? Are they trying to disuade too much fragmentation between these other open-source contenders?

I still believe Internet Explorer is a total waste of time, money, energy and focus for Microsoft. Why wouldn't an "own brand" browser be similarly one for Google?

Not sure ... let's see if they do anything clever with it.

Update : Dare Obasanjo nails an important point :

Will ship with Google Gears built-in

This pushes the Gears offline caching standard (against Mozilla's own rival) and is therefore an indirect attack on the desktop as offline application platform.

Dare's bonus question :

Am I the only one that thinks that Google is beginning to fight too many wars on too many fronts.

I half agree. To me, the most interesting question about Google today is whether, through their 20% time, and their ready engagement of open internet culture, and having pots of money to spare, they've created a genuinely new, decentralized type of company structure, one which is capable of innovating more products and fighting on more fronts at the same time, than a traditional, more top-down, organization.

I'm not wholly convinced they have. But then I'm not wholly convinced they haven't, either. I'm keeping an open mind. But if we see a few more of these bets become successful and profitable, that may signal a Google which is almost unbeatable by more conventional software companies.

Remember this discussion here?

Will IE break the web?