Google (GOOG) Browser: Crush Mozilla, Challenge Microsoft (MSFT)

Microsoft’s (MSFT) Internet Explorer has dominated the browser world for nearly a decade. It has also been part of legal accusations that the world’s largest software company used the ubiquity of its operating systems to help its online business.

Recently the Firefox browser, a free product built and supported by the Mozilla Foundation has picked up, by some measures, a 20% global share. Google (GOOG) will enter the market and do what it can to crush Firefox and take what it can from Microsoft.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the product, called Google Chrome, "is designed to make it easier and faster to browse the Web, by offering enhanced address-bar features and other elements that are very different from those on other browsers."

Since Internet Explorer comes loaded on the great majority of PCs, the Google product may not find it so easy to dislodge. Firefox, on the other hand, is in most cases downloaded from the Mozilla website. For Google Chrome to be successful, it would have to take another 15% to 20% of Microsoft’s browser share, or take a much larger piece of the Firefox business.

Google’s challenge will be to compete for the market of users who are willing to independently locate and download an Internet Explorer option. The number of consumers who will to opt to make that effort is probably very limited. It is one of the reasons that the Linux operating system never made much progress against Windows. Most PC users are willing to hold to the value of utility. Pulling disparate pieces of software from the internet does not have broad appeal for casual computer users.

Google Chrome may do fine, but it is likely to kill Firefox in the process.

Douglas A. McIntyre