Google Foothold on the Desktop?

Google entered the browser wars in October with the launch of Chrome. Now it seems they may be fighting to get Chrome placed on the desktop. Murad Ahmed makes the claim in a November 20 TimeOnline article titled "Google mulls pre-installing Chrome browser on computers". In the article Google Vice President, Sudar Pichia states that the browser will be coming out of beta version in January and that they will "probably" do distribution deals with OEMs [Original Equipment Manufacturers] to include Chrome.

Can inclusion on the desktop propel Chrome to parity with Internet Explorer? A loyal following from the web development community and the draw of its many innovations has enabled Firefox to gain a market share of approximately 20% while IE continues to enjoy a 71% share. While Firefox never enjoyed a distribution deal such as the one envisioned by Google, we hardly think that this alone would do what others have failed to achieve. We think Sam Diaz at ZDNet has a take on this that explains why Google would put forth the effort.

In a November 21st article title "Google Chrome to be pre-installed on PCs in 2009?" Sam links Chrome to Google's additional online offerings. He asserts that

"This could be just the thing that Google needs to help pull more users into its suite of online applications. Already, popular services like Gmail are integrated with Google’s calendar, IM, voice and video communications tools."

That is just a part of what Google has to offer. In our post at Webbilia.com, "Google Docs Treasure Trove" we provided a brief overview of Google Docs which provides free word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation applications for members. As all these products come to maturity, the convenience of Chrome as the interface to the collection of Google products would be very attractive to those who have grown tired of spending money on Microsoft products they don't really need.