For Microsoft, it seems there is no
respite from Google. For, one by
one, the search engine giant is attacking each and every business
the largest information technology company on the earth is operating in.
First it was e-mail services, then came office applications suites, and now
web browsers. However, it is not for the first time that Google is
targeting Microsoft's supremacy in the web browser segment. In fact, before
the much-hyped entry of its own web browser, Chrome, Google
supported Mozilla Foundation's Firefox, which has a little over 22% share of
the browser market worldwide. But despite its best efforts, the Mountain View,
California-based company has not been able to pose any substantial
challenge to Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE), which commands a near monopoly,
with more than two-thirds of the share of the overall web browser market, as on
April 30, 2009. Other competitors like Safari (8.21%) and Opera (0.68%) are
distant runners. Webopedia defines a web browser as a type of software
application that is used to locate and display Web pages. The browser market
comprises of two segments—those closely coded popular browsers such
as Microsoft's IE 8.0 and Apple's Safari, followed by open-source products,
such as Mozilla's Firefox and Norway-based Opera.
But now, with the launch of Chrome, Google certainly promises to stir up
the market and pose significant threat to archrival, Microsoft. There are
reasons to believe so. Google has set an industry benchmark with its `all services for
free' model, away from the traditional
model of `selling a tangible product', posing a direct threat to software
giant Microsoft's products—its Operating System and Office Products, which
are its cash cow. Since its inception in 1997, Google has launched a variety of
services, such as SE (Search Engine), Gmail, Google Maps, Google
Docs, YouTube and Analytics, and created a trend of sorts by affiliating with
other businesses such as Orkut, Facebook, and Picasa, an online photo
album. Analysts believe that Google has virtually revolutionized the way
businesses are done over the Internet by offering products and services for
free—something that was never heard of.
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