[tt] NYT: Microsoft Faces New Browser Foe in Google

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Microsoft Faces New Browser Foe in Google
New York Times, 8.9.2
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/technology/02google.html

By STEVE LOHR

The browser war is back on.

This time, Microsoft's opponent is Google, a familiar foe.

On Tuesday, Google will release a free Web browser called Chrome
that the company said would challenge Microsoft's Internet Explorer,
as well as the Firefox browser.

The browser is a universal doorway to the Internet, and the use of
Internet software and services is rapidly growing. Increasingly, the
browser is also the doorway to the Web on cellphones and other
mobile devices, widening the utility of the Web and Web advertising.
Google, analysts say, cannot let Microsoft's dominant share of the
browser market go without a direct challenge.

Google already competes with Microsoft in online search and Internet
advertising. They both make operating software for cellphones.
Google is increasingly competing with Microsoft head-on in software
that handles basic productivity like word processing, spreadsheet,
presentation and e-mail programs. Google has Web-based software in
these markets that are low-cost or free alternatives to Microsoft's
lucrative desktop software.

Despite the frequent clashes with Microsoft -- including the role
Google played in thwarting an attempted acquisition of Yahoo --
Google has come out on top only in search and search advertising.
But Google does not have to win the browser war. Strategically,
opening yet another front against Microsoft forces it to divert
resources to defend franchises.

Now, Chrome heightens the rivalry and marks a shift for Google,
which has strongly backed Firefox, the open-source browser that has
gained about a fifth of the market against the dominant Internet
Explorer.

Google's browser project has been under way for more than a year, a
person close to the company said.

In a brief statement, Microsoft welcomed the new entry and expressed
confidence that people would prefer Explorer, which is on every
Windows PC sold.

"The browser landscape is highly competitive," said Dean
Hachamovitch, general manager of the Internet Explorer group. "But
people will choose Internet Explorer 8 for the way it puts the
services they want right at their fingertips, respects their
personal choices about how they want to browse and, more than any
other browsing technology, puts them in control of their personal
data online."

Google has clashed with Microsoft before, saying it had designed IE
to gain ground in search, a market where Google is the runaway
leader.

After Microsoft introduced IE 7 in 2006, Google complained that the
browser's search box favored Microsoft's search service. Microsoft
responded and made modifications, and a federal judge overseeing the
antitrust consent decree against Microsoft determined that the
browser design was not anticompetitive.

The first round of the browser wars in the 1990s led to a sweeping
federal antitrust suit against Microsoft for the tactics it used to
stifle competition from the commercial pioneer in browsing software,
Netscape Communications. A federal appeals court ruled in 2001 that
Microsoft had repeatedly violated the nation's antitrust laws.
Microsoft later reached a settlement with the Bush administration,
which included some sanctions but left the company free to bundle
browsing software with Windows, which runs more than 90 percent of
all personal computers.

Microsoft recently stepped up its own browser development efforts,
given the increasing importance of the browser and signs that
Firefox is nibbling at its lead. Microsoft released a new version,
IE8, last week to generally favorable reviews.

Microsoft still holds 73 percent of the browser market, according to
Net Applications, a research firm. The market share for Firefox has
climbed to 19 percent, while Apple's Safari has 6 percent.

Chrome also puts Google in competition with an ally, the Mozilla
Corporation, which manages the Firefox project. Just last week,
Google renewed its deal with Mozilla. Under the arrangement, Google
Search is the home page for Firefox and Google is its default search
bar, and Google makes substantial payments to Mozilla. The agreement
runs through November 2011, and will continue.

Google's cooperation with Mozilla, however friendly, meant that it
was ceding control of the Internet's vital gateway technology -- and
the dominant supplier of that technology is its archrival,
Microsoft.

Given the increasing importance of the browser and its widening
competition with Microsoft, Google's entry into the market is not
surprising, said John Lilly, chief executive of Mozilla.

"It would be more surprising to me if Google didn't do something in
the browser space," Mr. Lilly said. "After all, Google is 100
percent on the Web."

Google's move, he said, would put "more competitive pressure on us
to keep coming up with great browser technology. But having more
smart people competing to improve browser technology and the user
experience is a good thing."

Mr. Lilly also noted that Mozilla, while a private company, is
entirely owned by the Mozilla Foundation. The browser project was
begun to provide an alternative to Microsoft's browser. "The mission
of Mozilla is to keep the Web open, a pure public benefit," he said.
"Others have other motivations and Google's move also serves to
highlight our position in the marketplace."

Chrome will be available to download in a test, or beta, version on
Tuesday, Google announced on its Web site Monday afternoon. The
browser will run on Windows. Google is also working on Chrome
versions for Apple's Macintosh, as well as Linux, an open source
operating system.

In a curious twist, Google made its online announcement after its
plans appeared as a digital "comic book" that was posted by Google
Blogoscoped, a Web site that tracks the Internet search giant.

According to Google's Web site post, by Sundar Pichai, an
engineering director and vice president for product management,
Chrome is designed for speed and ease of use.

But the other design goal, it seems, was to make sure Google could
control how well the growing range of Web-based software it is
developing will perform, instead of having to run on a Microsoft
browser.

"Under the hood," Mr. Pichai wrote, "we were able to build the
foundation of a browser that runs today's complex Web applications
much better."

Later, he wrote, "we improved speed and responsiveness across the
board. We also built a more powerful JavaScript engine, V8, to power
the next generation of Web applications that aren't even possible in
today's browsers."

Chrome is based on an open-source rendering engine, WebKit, and an
open-source version of Google's Gears technology. Chrome will also
be able to run in a privacy mode, InCognito, so that no information
about a person's browsing is collected. With IE8 last week,
Microsoft added a privacy mode of browsing, called InPrivate.

The privacy features, analysts note, could undercut the Internet
advertising business of Google, but also Microsoft, Yahoo and others
that depend on ads aimed at users based on their browsing behavior.
But it is unclear, analysts say, how large a share of users will opt
for the privacy browsing mode and give up the convenience of having
a browser store sites recently visited in tabbed settings for easy
navigation.