It is now exactly one year since Google introduced their new browser Chrome. All along, they had patronized one of the best open source browsers in the world, Firefox and helped it become the second most popular browser after the mighty Internet Explorer. When Chrome was introduced, people wondered if Firefox was going to suffer.
Retrospectively, nothing much has changed since then. In the one year that Google Chrome has existed, it has grown from 0% to 2.59% market share; nothing remarkable given that Google has access to almost every internet user on the planet in one way or the other. Google’s leadership in all things on the internet has clearly not helped in this case.
Quite expectedly, Google is making more aggressive moves now, and is emulating the strategy Microsoft took to beat Netscape in the late 1990s in the browser wars. As a first step, Google has confirmed the speculation that Sony has agreed to make Google Chrome the default browser in all their computer shipments including VAIO. The financials regarding the deal was not disclosed. The strategy can clearly pay given that not many people still do not know the difference between Google and a browser and a default icon on the desktop to ‘Google Chrome’ can really bring in new users.
But is Sony the right partner? No, given that their market share in computer shipments is nothing to write home about and they are nowhere in the top five list. But as confirmed by Google, they shall be getting similar deals happening with other major PC manufacturers that can really help Chrome reach a respectable market share at least in the second year. Happy Birthday Chrome!
