The Great Year of Google Chrome

The case of Google Chrome is a surprising example of what was said 4 years ago: "The browser that aspires to be an operating system"

I remember in 2008 September I wrote about how Google launched its own browserWhen the expectation to dethrone Internet Explorer would seem crazy like thinking now that iOS will be able to surpass Windows in the next three years. The graph above shows us that IE had 71%, Firefox 26% and the rest remained in the queue without exceeding 2%.

30 months later, just a year ago I played the theme again, with the article Google Chrome 30 months later, Using my statistics showed how Chrome was positioned at almost 23% while Firefox had reached 29% and Internet Explorer fell sharply to 44%.

But the last year has shown that I was wrong, although I believed that this browser would surpass both, it did not occur to me that it could do it in less the next 12 months. See how the statistics for the past 30 days make Chrome 39%, Internet Explorer 31% and Firefox 23%. This indicates that the browser has managed to remove users from both, although the growth of Safari is also striking, reaching close to 4% in an interesting takeoff thanks to the positioning of mobile phones.

The biggest damage is not only Internet Explorer but also Windows and Office because much of this growth is not only due to navigation but also the integration of associated services that can now be done from Chrome in simple things such as:

Build a Word / Excel document collaboratively. We took the experience of this with Cartesia and GabrielOrtiz in the structuring of the Z model! Spaces and I must admit that it would never have been possible the old way using Microsoft Word.

This week Google has launched its version for iPad / iPhone, and although it is quite raw, I will use it more than Safari. No longer by ability but by familiarity, aware that the current bugs will be resolved in two weeks. I remember there was an iPad clone called Chromy, which had to change its name later because of a threat from Google to sue them -Not by making a copy or using his name but by abusing in his lack of creativity-.

Perhaps the example I mention of GoogleDocs is sparse, but sooner or later we will realize that times are changing rapidly; we no longer occupy an operating system so much if it can be done from the cloud -And a mobile of course-. And although desktop PCs will continue to be used and sold, it is forecast that by next year more tablets will be sold than PCs. Little by little we are getting used to concentrating on this tablet what a perishable agenda in twelve months implied, 6 notebooks of the University perishable in three, the email, the sketchbook, the dictionary, the music player, the grocery shopping list, the camera ...

Although I have my discomfort with Google, not only because it can become the next Microsoft but because it may be more bad, I must admit that I admire at least four of its products with which I have been more productive:

• Google Earth / Maps, with which he made us think about cartography in a more daily way
• AdSense, with which Internet advertising became easy
• Google Docs, with easy access to commonly used documents

And of course Chrome, as an example of a product that can win the battle in less than 4 years.