Already the web is alight with the chatter of the new browser from Google announced yesterday - Chrome. There are a few things that bother me about this though. The most important are productivity and the user experience. Both of which come down to the same thing - standards.
Long ago, we in the electronic design industry learned the many advantages of creating, implementing and supporting standards. We realized that the point at which different products intersect is not where the value resides. In addition, to make this point in the system standard increases “ecosystem” productivity and ultimately the value of the entire system. Everybody wins.
In the world of web-based system and application development a great deal of productivity is wasted in building and testing software to execute to specification within the two leading browsers IE (our least favorite) and FireFox. While competition is a good thing, and maybe we needed another 800lb gorrilla in the room to bring all of the standards together, to release a product that is beta 0.2 (!!!!) through a channel as powerful as Google’s is irresponsible.
To bring the security (already an issue discovered with Chrome), compatibility and user experience overhead to the web when Google has the resources to bring the industry quality and increased productivity is again irresponsible.
Google needs to take a stronger leadership position and start being “the adult in the room”. They have the resources, the leverage and the war chest to deliver a product that can do that - they don’t need a 0.2 beta to “gain traction in the marketplace”.
Posted under industry
Hi James,
I agree that another Browser to support is a drag on productivity. Just like supporting SunOS, Solaris, HPUX, and AIX was a pain years ago for EDA companies. My wife develops web sites and it’s a big issue for her as well.
Still, I don’t think Google’s strategy has anything to do with grabbing a bigger piece of the free browser market. It looks to me that the battle has moved from the desktop to the clouds. Google’s strategy is to link their new browser tightly with thier cloud-based applications to provide a superior experience for people running google apps. Microsoft is also moving in that direction, but they are trying to climb that mountain with one foot on the ground (i.e. desktop apps).
As cloud-based computing gains steam, EDA tools will need to move in this direction as well. Are the tools designed to take advantage of multi-processing? Do they support multiple users from many geographies? Can I suspend my application from work, drive home, then reconnect from there? I guess we’ll find out.
harry the ASIC guy
I absolutely agree Harry. My point about traction was not so much a comment on their strategy, but their tactic of releasing a “product” so early in the development process.
Having a web-based application in beta is one thing, as you’re only impacting yourself. It’s a different matter when it’s the engine that people will use to view pages and start to build expectations upon.
There are a lot of weaknesses in both IE and FF that developers take great pains to work around. But when something doesn’t render correctly, the blame rarely goes on the browser.
As for EDA tools working in the cloud, we have an example of this on the Xuropa Platform. Check out the Online Lab from Fenix and try out their CrossFire product.
It’s all about the JavaScript engine. For AJAX apps Chrome is the fastest I’ve seen and I recommend that http://spectareg.com customers us it for the fastest experience.