AttentionMax

Save for the excessive, inescapable hype and prognostication, Google Chrome doesn’t have an immediate impact on me. I work on a Mac, so I can’t even test-drive the new Web browser (although I did read the comic).

What does it boil down to? Not the browser horse race, which so many portray. While he tends to over-narrate anything Google, often with great doom and gloom, Nicholas Carr delivers a meaningful analysis:

Although I’m sure Google would be thrilled if Chrome grabbed a sizable chunk of market share, winning a “browser war” is not its real goal. Its real goal, embedded in Chrome’s open-source code, is to upgrade the capabilities of all browsers so that they can better support (and eventually disappear behind) the applications. The browser may be the medium, but the applications are the message.

That’s an interesting tactic. Introduce competition, not because it’s your goal, but because it creates a more vibrant, nurturing landscape for the rest of your products and services. Competition as a subtle Trojan Horse.