It’s been a while since there’s been a major power play by someone in Silicon Valley. A big “take over the world” type of action. I think Google’s latest Chrome is that – reminiscent of the old days of Netscape, Sun and others who were all trying to take over the world.
Fred Wilson does a good job of describing how their 3 latest projects: Chrome, Android, and Cloud/Gears are positioning them to be the OS of the future. Saying:
- They are building a modern browser, Chrome, that resembles an operating system as much as a browser. It’s not that Google wants to build a better version of Internet Explorer or Firefox. They want to build a better environment for running web apps.
- They are building a mobile operating system, Android, that is also designed for running web apps in a mobile environment. I think in time, Google’s Android will be to the iPhone what Windows was to the Mac. The iPhone laid out many of the killer mobile device innovations, but its a closed device, a closed carrier relationship, and even a closed application store. Android will take all of those good ideas and put them on every device, with every carrier, and in partnership with every app developer.
- Google is all about the cloud. They have developed all of their apps in what goes for the cloud these days. They’ve build a great cloud computing platform in App Engine.
These three things ensure that Google will be a major player. With other launches of OpenSocial and such don’t display the raw power of Google but here it is. I love it and believe they will be the biggest and most powerful company standing – over facebook, Microsoft and others – when the dust settles.