Given the huge popularity enjoyed by everything Google does these days(nevermind the corporate missteps leading to their IPO) in the eyes of the masses, it comes as no surprise that Google is preparing to launch its own browser.
I have been an active user of Gmail for the past few months and have found it to be an extremely convenient and innovative mail service, not to mention the vast storage space of 1GB per mailbox provided. The labelling system is unique and definitely useful and the conversation thread management mechanism is alone worth having a Gmail account. The service which is still on an invite-only basis has become so popular that they are sold for a dollar or higher on ebay. The cool factor of being one of the select few(although the few has been increasing fairly fast over the last month or so) with a Gmail account, coupled with the 1GB space has generated a great demand for it. As with its pioneering search engine, Google has come up trumps with its email service. It would be interesting to watch how google starts handling the accounts once it becomes a regular service and comes out of its beta, invite-only stage. While Yahoo has responded by upping its storage capacity to 100 MB and also improving its service, Hotmail from Microsoft continues to be the bad boy with a paltry 2MB (where is the promised 250 MB?) , not to mention the regular "Server is busy" messages and the annoying "Mailbox is approaching its limit" indicators all over. In fact its interesting to note that inspite of announcing an upgrade to 250MB mailboxes this summer (Summer is over. Officially), Hotmail continues to push for its Plus service that would not make much sense, after the mailbox size upgrade. As always, mixed signals continues to be Microsoft's forte.
Google, now cash rich with 1.67 billion dollars is preparing a multi-pronged attack into what is conventionally MS-Yahoo-AOL only territory. Its rumored to be working on a browser GBrowser based on the solid Mozilla Firefox source code. Given the security flaws in IE and the increasing popularity and press attention for Mozilla Firefox, Google would be starting off on the right foot. Added to that is Google's penchant for all things new and different and we have a much anticipated browser on the horizon.
On a final note, there is so much talk of Google and what its going to do with all its money that the rumor mills are going to be working overtime on this. Adding fuel to the fire is the number of engineers google is adding to its workforce every week (in its own unique way, I must add). Sergey Brin and Larry Page would not have envisaged the amount of interest and hype they would be generating when they created their now ubiquitous browser at Stanford. But given that Google generates all its money without compromising on all the free services they offer to the masses, this is one race horse that will remain a public favorite for a while.
2 comments:
G-company's speciality has been periodic release of exciting new products. Yet, great news!
[MS forayed into Google-territory with its significantly advanced search engine, now it is payback time]
Talking about 'offline storage' (that the ZNet article mentioned as a potential growth-area), Amazon-A9's search interface does a lot of that - History and Bookmarks being the highlights.
But let's expect Brin-Page duo to surprise us!
I am a big fan of anyone who does anything that challenges the traditional MS domains. Google has done more than that. They have beaten MS in the search area, challenged them in the email area with gmail and are now planning forays into MS's prized browser domain (as if Mozilla isnt giving Microsoft's browser team, enough headaches). Competition is always good for the industry and Google is doing just that. Hopefully this will give us better products.
I have been using A9 quite a bit and its actually good. And you do get a 1.5% discount when you sign in to your Amazon account and use A9 as your browser. That doesnt hurt does it :)
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