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”.
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