With the abrupt, but not unexpected, demise of Netscape—coupled with the reformation of Mozilla—weblogers the world over have speculated on what will happen next.
Personally I think that Anil’s suggestion that Google should bankroll, or at least promote, the Mozilla Foundation is a great idea, although with a few flaws.
Namely that Google is a company first and foremost and companies aim to look after themselves—to survive and make profit. Investing money does look like a shady option for Google as it would be gambling on Mozilla’s success. Anil even raises this point himself, although I don’t agree with his reasoning.
“What would be the business model? My mind tells me that a free, open-source browser with built-in hooks to Google services and APIs would be good enough to push increased usage of Google’s revenue-generating services and advertising. Microsoft has publicly conceded that they’re going for Google’s market, and Yahoo threw more than a billion and a half dollars at the Google problem earlier this week. Against those challenges, I’d say the onus is on Google to embrace and extend with a free product that’s better than anything the competition can offer: That’s what works.”
Promoting Mozilla would mean trouble for Google. It would be the business equivalent of tripping over the school bully, not something you want to be doing when Microsoft is developing its own search engine. More likely than not, MSN search integrated into the next edition of Windows—chipping away further at Google’s market share. There’s no need to worry yet though as Robert Scoble has given his word that “In the latest builds of Longhorn, Google still works just fine.”. Oh good, glad we got that cleared up.
It has been said before that Google is, at heart, a “nice” company, and I also believe it is. I just don’t believe that this idea is commercially viable.
Having said that, Google has been known to innovate.
It doesn’t favour “Sponsored Links” over more relevant links, it moves them to a discreet column of their own. It uses PageRank to differentiate between the search results — providing us with the most accurate and relevant results. It’s fast and intuitive to use.
If Google continues to innovate (as I believe it will), they will likely concentrate efforts on; evolving the Google interface into an even slicker, accessible, and intuitive experience and updating the Google API—not shelling out for an open source project.
This post may seem a little anti-Mozilla but that isn’t its intended purpose.
Please try to keep comments on topic and polite.
I think you are right in saying that Google has plans of its own. Their approach has been understanding to say the least and they have repeatedly shown that they do care abt providing the best possible solutions to the customer.
But more importantly, Mozilla doesn’t fit into their scenario. Google has become the chokepoint to all resources on the web. And their hold is increasing day by day. That is the reason Microsoft sees Google as a threat because not so long ago, IE was the chokepoint to the web. But Google’s strategy is grander. While Microsoft wanted to control the PC to Internet pathway, Google aims to control all the pathways that lead to any information, anywhere. That is their plan. Mozilla, doesn’t figure anywhere in this scenario.
Yeah this seems pretty far-fetched. But, really if we look closer at the offerings of Google in the form of Platform specific searches (for Macs, Linux), Language translation offerings (translating complete webpages in many different languages), and extendability through APIs and etc., they intend to target every facet of an individual’s experience in the web. And along the way, there will be cash registers at Google going ka ching! Yeah, it may be a few pennies but those few pennies do add up when you fathom the scope and breadth of Google.
Its a bit ironic but Google is potentially going to do, what everybody was saying Microsoft would do! And while everybody saw through Microsoft, Google’s niceties may just cut the mustard.
I say this not because I hate Google or something in that order. I say that because Google has become an integral part of my life, as ubiquitous as email. And, like you said, they are still at heart, a company that cares for its own interests, welfare and growth.
Comments may be edited. By posting a comment you accept that this may happen. If you would prefer to TrackBack this entry then the URL to ping is http://zlog.co.uk/mt/mt-tb.cgi/30
(c) Copyright 2003 zlog, All rights reserved