The primary technology used by individuals to access the Web, the Web Browser, has not undergone substantial transformation since the creation of the first browser (Mosaic) by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) in 1992. At that time, the web was primarily a document repository without the rich media types, interactivity, or proliferation of social information that is the foundation of our Web 2.0 ecosystem. While browsers have certainly improved in speed and features, the underlying document-centric mindset has dominated the browser paradigm.

Last week Google announced the release of their first browser, code named Chrome. Chrome takes a very different approach to the Web, one that is built not only on the current foundation of web technologies, but is built in recognition of the importance of javascript to the modern web experience and the emergence of web applications as a way of working. In this sense, one of the most important components of Chrome may well be the extension of Google Gears and an embrace of cloud computing. Google has a great illustrated "comic book" that explains some of the underlying philosophy and technologies used in Chrome.[1]

The first version of Chrome is a windows-only application but ports to other operating systems are under active development. Importantly, all of the underlying source code for the browser has been made open source and is available for the worldwide network of software developers to hack, improve, and test. Within the first day of its availability on the Web, Chrome had risen to being 1.7% of the global browser market.

What might be the underlying impact of Chrome:

1) A Substantial New Software Project for Google: Clearly Chrome is a cornerstone of the web experience that Google wants to develop and exploit. The highest levels of Google have publicly stated that this is a major project and Google's creators being on hand for the software announcement and confirm this fact.

2) Wither Mozilla? Google has been a primary supporter of Mozilla and was a critical ally in the fight to keep the browser viable when its market share was being attacked by Microsoft's Internet Explorer. While Google still talks the Mozilla talk, it is clear to most analyst that Chrome poses a threat to Mozilla. This will come about in likely one of two ways: 1) Google will likely explicitly decrease their support of Mozilla as they make a greater resource investment in Chrome. It is questionable who will step into the void left. 2) Since the Chrome code base is open source the legions of mozilla developers may begin to invest their time on Chrome as opposed to continued work on the Mozilla code-base. This attention deficit could decrease new releases effectively killing the browser in the uber-comeptitive mindshare battle.[4]

[3] The Mobile Browser Battle Will Heat Up: Chrome is likely part of a multi-platform campaign by Google with an increasing emphasis on the mobile device needs. The Google investment in Android provides a hardware platform on which Chrome may be optimized, and from the discussion of the motivation for Chrome by Google, they both use the same underlying software architecture (webkit). This common starting point will allow Google to place significant pressure, if they choose, on other mobile software providers. [5] This is a critical battleground. Remember that while today's Web is built around desktop personal computers the future is a billion mobile devices accessing global information.

[4] It's About the Gears, Stupid: It would be a mistake to look at the Google effort as being primarily about an effort to win the browser wars dominated by Internet Explorer (72.15% of global use).6 Instead, Chrome is likely focused in large part on trying to spread the adoption of Google Gears. Gears is Google's approach to distributed "cloud based" applications. Imagine a world in which Google provides not your browser, but your mail, your word processor, your spreadsheet, your contacts, and your slides.[4]