Tim Anderson's ITWriting » google

Google favours big brands over diversity

tim — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 08:57:34 +0000

Google has made a change to its search algorithm that means most of the results shown for a search may now come from a single domain. Previously, it would only show a couple of results from one domain, on the assumption that users would prefer to select from a diversity of results.

The example chosen by searchengineland is a good one. Search for Apple iPod and you get a page that is mostly links to Apple’s site.

If you search for the single word ipod you get more diversity – odd, since only Apple manufacture the ipod so you could argue that the searches are the same. Some people use ipod as a generic name for MP3 player, but that doesn’t seem to be reflected; all the results still relate to Apple’s device.

Personally I’d rather see diversity. I don’t see the need for this change, since the site summary with deep links works well when a particular domain closely matches the search term. You can see an example of this in the top result for the ipod search above. Note that it even has a link for “More results from apple.com”. What is the value of suppressing the results from other domains?

The overall impact is that big brands benefit, while smaller businesses and new entrants to markets suffer. It also makes independent comment that bit harder to find.

While to most of us changes like these are only of passing interest, to some they make the difference between a flourishing business and a dead one. Google has too much power.

Incidentally, I generally find Google significantly better than Bing, now its major competitor. However in this case Bing impresses, with categories such as reviews, prices, accessories, manuals and so on; and in the case of the Apple ipod search, a better balance between the official site and independents.

Oracle still foisting Google Toolbar on Java users

tim — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 06:25:10 +0000

Oracle may be suing Google over its use of Java in Android; but the company is still happy to take the search giant’s cash in exchange for foisting the Google Toolbar on users who carelessly click Next when updating their Java installation on Windows. If they do, the Toolbar is installed by default.

This is poor practice for several reasons. It is annoying and disrespectful to the user, particularly when the same dialog has been passed many times before, bad for performance, bad for security.

Sun at least had the excuse that it needed whatever income it could get.

I know certain other companies do this as well with their free runtimes – Adobe is one – and I like it just as little. However, as far as I can recall Adobe only adds foistware on a new install, not with semi-automatic updates.

Apple not Android is killing client-side Java – so why is Oracle suing Google?

tim — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 10:59:24 +0000

Oracle is suing Google over Java in Android; the Register has a link to the complaint itself which lists seven patents which Oracle claims Google has infringed. There is also a further clause which says Google has infringed copyright in the:

code, specifications, documentation and other materials) that is copyrightable subject matter

and that it is not possible for a device manufacturer to create an Android device without infringing Oracle’s copyrights. Oracle is demanding stern penalties including destruction of all infringing copies – I presume this might mean destruction of all Android devices, though as we all know lawyers routinely demand more than they expect to win, as a negotiating position.

But isn’t Java open source? It is; but licensing is not simple, and “open source” does not mean “non-copyright”. You can read the Java open source licensing statements here. I am not a licensing expert; but one of the key issues with Google’s use of Java in Android is that it is not quite Java. Oracle’s complaint says:

Google’s Android competes with Oracle America’s Java as an operating system software platform for cellular telephones and other mobile devices. The Android operating system software “stack” consists of Java applications running on a Java-based object-oriented application framework, and core libraries running on a “Dalvik” virtual machine (VM) that features just-in-time (JIT) compilation.

Note that Oracle says “Java-based”. Binaries compiled for Android will not run on other JVM implementations. I am no expert on open source licensing; but if Google is using Java in ways that fall outside what is covered by the open source license, then that license does not apply.

Despite the above, I have no idea whether Oracle’s case has legal merit. It is interesting though that Oracle is choosing to pursue Google; and I have some sympathy given that Java’s unique feature has always been interoperability and cross-platform, which Android seems to break to some extent.

James Gosling’s post on the subject is relevant:

When Google came to us with their thoughts on cellphones, one of their core principles was making the platform free to handset providers. They had very weak notions of interoperability, which, given our history, we strongly objected to. Android has pretty much played out the way that we feared: there is enough fragmentation among Android handsets to significantly restrict the freedom of software developers.

though he adds:

Don’t interpret any of my comments as support for Oracle’s suit. There are no guiltless parties with white hats in this little drama. This skirmish isn’t much about patents or principles or programming languages. The suit is far more about ego, money and power.

The official approach to Java on devices is Java ME; and Java ME guys like Hinkmond Wong hate Android accordingly:

Heck, forget taking the top 10,000 apps, take the top Android 10 apps and try running all of them on every single Android device out there. Have you learned nothing at all from Java ME technology, Android? Even in our current state in Java ME, we are nowhere as fragmented as the last 5 Android releases in 12 months (1.5, 1.6, 2.0, 2.1 and recently 2.2).

Fair enough; but it is also obvious that Android has revived interest in client-side Java in a way that Sun failed to do despite years of trying. The enemy of client-side Java is not Android, but rather Apple: there’s no sign of Java on iPhone or iPad. Apple’s efforts have killed the notion of Java everywhere, given the importance of Apple’s mobile platform. Java needs Android, which makes this lawsuit a surprising one.

But what does Oracle want? Just the money? Or to force Google into a more interoperable implementation, for the benefit of the wider Java platform? Or to disrupt Android as a favour to Apple?

Anyone’s guess at the moment. I wonder if Google wishes it had acquired Sun when it had the chance?

Note: along with the links above, I like the posts on this subject from Redmonk’s Stephen O’Grady and Mono guy Miguel de Icaza.

Testing the Canvas element in Internet Explorer 9

tim — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 13:55:29 +0000

I’m impressed by the demos at the IE9 Testdrive site, which is full of fun and interest. Of course it’s good to try the demos in other recent browsers, though as you would expect on a Microsoft site, IE9 tends to work best. For example the great Beatz demo scored 8510 in IE 9 versus 1560 in Google Chrome 6 (developer build):

But are these demos slanted to favour IE9? I looked around for some independent demos, especially for the Canvas element. Here’s one on developer.mozilla.org, for example:

Hmm, it looks like some of these demos do not allow for the possibility of Internet Explorer supporting Canvas. What about this one?

Not too good either. I tried downloading it and hacking it to work in IE9. I disabled the script that conditionally displays the Chrome Frame offer and tried again. Another failure, because IE9 loaded the page in IE5 document mode. When I have a moment I’ll work out why. I forced IE9 mode (Debug menu) and at last was in business, sort-of:

Chrome is on the left, IE9 on the right. This is an animation with speech bubbles, and there is some problem with the text handling because the bubbles do not appear in IE9. Still, it did run. I noticed that IE9 ran slightly faster than Chrome, but with nothing like the big Testdrive difference: 209fps versus 164 fps, for example, but varying considerably as the animation proceeded.

I also tried with Mozilla Firefox 3.6, which is much slower than Chrome on this example, around 71 fps.

No conclusions yet, but watch this space. It would also be helpful if more of the folk doing Canvas demos would test with IE9 as well as Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera. The experience bears out what Microsoft is preaching: test for the feature, not the browser version.

Microsoft and the NHS: what went wrong?

tim — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:19:18 +0000

Microsoft UK’s John Coulthard, Senior Director Healthcare and Life Sciences, has posted a comment on the decision by the NHS not to renew its EWA (Enterprise Wide Agreement) with Microsoft. His summary:

The bottom line is the NHS benefited from the productivity gains delivered through a suite of Microsoft software worth in excess of £270m per year. The actual cost to the NHS was £65m per year, delivering a saving of saving of £205m to the NHS and British taxpayers. For the next three years the cost would have risen to £85m as the NHS deploys more and more technology while the National Programme rolls out.

Software supplier whinging at loss of a lucrative contract? Of course; but at the same time I’d be interested to know whether this results in greater expense for UK taxpayers, of which I am one, and what is the real reason for the contract’s termination.

I’d like to think the decision is part of a strategy to end vendor lock-in and promote both competition and use of open source systems; but the truth may be less inspiring.

What are we to make of this report in Computer Weekly which says:

“Out of the blue, the Cabinet Office rejected the cut-down version of the renewal," said a source. "The noise from the top is that they are not sure national agreements work. It will be down to the trusts to make sure they are fully licensed."

One of the odd things reported is that the cut-down agreement was to have cost £21m, I presume annually; but the government is paying an immediate £50m to Microsoft:

The Cabinet Office did agree to pay Microsoft about £50m to cover software used in the previous agreement that was not licensed, but attributed the spend to the last administration’s budget.

That does not sound like a strategy to save money, when you consider the licensing costs now facing NHS trusts who no longer have an agreement in place.

Now, it is possible that the long-term effect will be to reduce lock-in, though that is optimistic; I do not know if any NHS trusts are actually planning to move away from Microsoft’s platform and even if they are, it is not something that can be done quickly. Another scenario is that most of them make their own agreements with Microsoft, the total cost of which exceeds what the EWA renewal would have cost.

Still, the outcome will probably please Google which has its own idea about how to provide IT for healthcare.

Nothing I’ve read really explains the decision and I would like to know more.

Google App Inventor – another go at visual programming

tim — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 08:41:58 +0000

Google has put App Inventor for Android on Google Labs:

To use App Inventor, you do not need to be a developer. App Inventor requires NO programming knowledge. This is because instead of writing code, you visually design the way the app looks and use blocks to specify the app’s behavior.

Sharon Machlis at Computerworld says it is a breakthrough:

App Inventor has the potential to do for mobile app creation what VisiCalc did for computations — move it out of the exclusive realm of specialists in glassed-in data centers (or, in the case of mobile apps, programmers who can use a conventional SDK) into the hands of power users as well as make it easier for IT departments to create corporate apps.

I’d like to believe this but I do not. It is visual programming; it is interesting; but it is similar to other visual programming tools that we’ve seen in the past. These tools have their place for learning, and there is probably some small sub-section of programming tasks for which they are ideally suited, and some small sub-section of developers for whom they work better than text-based tools, but for most of us textual code is easier and more productive when we are coding the logic rather than the user interface of an application.

I took a look at the Quiz Me tutorial. Here’s a code snippet – it is a click event handler:

and here is the complete application. Note the navigator at top right, which would be vital for finding your way around a more complex app:

It is often a problem with visual programming tools: scaling an app beyond a few simple blocks introduces difficulties with navigation and project management. Our text-based tools are highly evolved for managing large projects with thousands of lines of code.

What about democratisation of programming through visual tools like this, coding without coding, that will allow domain specialists to develop apps without involving developers? Is visual programming really easier for the non-specialist than textual programming? I’m not convinced. It should be easier to get started: no syntax errors, no language reference to consult. In the end though, is a purple “if” block with jigsaw connections for “test” and “then-do” much easier than typing if (test) {code block}?

It is just a different way of presenting the same thing, but less concise and less flexible. I suspect the domain specialist who can succeed with App Inventor will also succeed with code; and that people who struggle with code-based programming in an accessible language like Basic will also struggle with visual programming.

Where this gets interesting is when you have powerful components that expose a simple interface. A high-level non-specialist programmer can drag a component onto a design palette and do amazing things, because of the smarts that are hidden inside. Components do democratise development. One reason for the success of Microsoft’s development platform is that from Visual Basic through COM and then .NET, the company has always made it easy to use components and fostered a strong third-party market for them. If App Inventor provides a great way to deliver components to high-level developers, it could succeed.

That said, components do not require visual programming. Microsoft has flirted with visual programming – like the abandoned PopFly – but despite using the name “visual” everywhere, Microsoft has never delivered a mainstream visual programming tool.

Two days with Apple iPhone 4

tim — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 10:52:56 +0000

I’ve been trying out iPhone 4 since its launch on Thursday this week. My main interest is software development, and I have a couple of ideas for apps. Apple’s platform is annoying in several respects, especially the App Store lock-in and the Apple tax, but it is unavoidable. Unfortunately when a company gets the idea that it should support the fast-growing mobile device sector with an app, the iPhone is the one they think of first, and iPad follows. Google Android is coming up fast, thank goodness, but has nothing like the mindshare or market share of Apple’s device platform.

Software developers have another reason to study the iPhone, which is as a case study in software design and usability. After using iPhone 4 for a couple of days, and watching friends try it even if they have not used one before, I am full of admiration for what Apple has achieved. There are a few basic concepts to grasp – home button, breadcrumbs, swipe and multi-touch – after which it is mostly delightful. There is hardly any documentation in the box – though there is a downloadable manual – just a brief leaflet describing a few essentials, but discoverability is good, especially with a little help from Google.

Need a screen grab, for example? Press and hold home and tap the top button. The grab turns up in the camera roll. It’s not something you would find out by chance, but only a search away.

Text input is a big deal for me. I am much faster on a real keyboard, but the iPhone is as good as many thumb keyboards. Again, there are things you have to discover. There are no cursor keys, but if you hold down an area of text a bubble appears, and sliding your finger left and right moves the cursor so you can easily correct an error.

The Exchange support, by the way, is excellent. I put in the settings for Outlook over HTTP; the iPhone complained briefly about my self-generated digital certificate and then connected without any hassles. The device picks up all the folders in the inbox without any additional configuration. The one feature I would like to add is the ability to select a different sending email address; if anyone knows a way to do this, let me know.

I am also impressed by iPhone Safari. After struggling with an old Windows Mobile browser, it is a relief to have a proper web browser restricted only by its small screen; pinch and zoom copes with most problems though it is always going to be a limitation; sites optimised for mobile work better.

Google Maps is great too. The GPS works well, and finding your way around is a snap.

The high resolution screen is lovely of course, and the camera is superb. I will do some comparisons against my Canon Ixus, but if I keep the phone it might save me the need to carry a separate camera when out and about, at least until the lens gets scratched.

Anything not to like? A few things. The price, for one, especially when supplemented by whatever scheme your mobile operator devises to separate you from your money. Many schemes offer only 500MB per month data allowance; not enough, especially as data usage can only increase.

There’s also the iTunes problem. I know others like it, but I personally don’t get on well with iTunes, finding it bloated and annoying. I don’t allow it on a PC, but keep a Mac Mini handy for when I need to do the Apple thing. It is absurd though that you cannot use an iPhone without activating it first via iTunes. What happens when a user decides that iPad plus iPhone plus cloud is all they need? I can’t help wondering if Apple simply wants to ensure that as many people as possible install its online store.

Whenever I connect the iPhone, iPhoto pops up and wants to import photos, even the ones that I’ve already imported. I have to check the option not to bother with duplicates every time. There must be a way of avoiding this annoyance, but I’ve not spotted it yet.

Then there’s the reception issue. It’s well known that many, possibly all iPhone 4 models have a bug where if you hold it in the normal way, your hand bridges a gap in the external antennas and damages reception. Steve Jobs says that reception issues when holding a phone in a certain way is “a fact of life for every wireless phone”; this is arrogant spin and I hope Apple gets lots of returns or at least hands out for free the bumper cases that apparently resolve the issue.

That said, my iPhone is on O2 and at home the reception is terrible however I hold the phone, even though I am in a high coverage area according to O2. At my desk I get only one bar and calls are not always possible – which means I will have to cancel the contract.

I did manage to fit the micro sim into my old Windows Mobile phone to see if it is just an iPhone problem. It was just about as bad, so no, it is O2. In general I’ve not been impressed with the O2 reception in my part of the world, though it is excellent in our local O2 shop; perhaps they have a booster under the desk.

There are little niggles elsewhere too. I tried Voice Control, for example, and found it useless; perhaps I have the wrong kind of voice.

If I speak to play a song, there is 25% chance that it plays, 50% chance that I get a “no match” error message, and 25% chance that it dials a random person in my address book. A hidden social media function?

A number of negatives then; but the iPhone contrives to be good enough that users overlook any faults because they like it so much. It’s certainly a better experience than the last Android device I tried; though that is well out of date now, and I intend to look closely at Android 2.2 “Froyo” as soon as the phones become available.

Update: As far as I can tell, if you buy your iPhone at a store it will be activated for you, so you don’t need iTunes to get started. However iTunes is necessary if you receive your iPhone by post and activate it yourself.

Serena flip-flops: goes Google, then back to Microsoft

tim — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 08:01:00 +0000

Interesting story from Serena software, an 800-employee company with 29 offices around the globe whose products cover application lifecycle management and business process management.

In June 2009 the company switched to Google Apps, meriting a post on the Official Google Enterprise Blog. Ron Brister, Senior manager of Global IT Operations talks about the change:

it was becoming increasingly clear that our messaging infrastructure was lacking. Inbox storage space was a constant complaint. Server maintenance was extremely time-consuming, and backups were inconsistent. Then we found that – calculating additional licenses of Microsoft Exchange, client access licenses for users, disaster recovery software, and additional disk storage space to increase mailbox quotas to 1.5GB – staying with our existing provider would have cost us upwards of $1 million. That was a nearly impossible number to justify with executives.

We thought about replacing our on-premise solution, but to tell the truth, we were skeptical. I, personally, had been a Microsoft admin for 15 years, and Microsoft technologies were ingrained in my thought processes. But Google Apps provided many pluses: Gmail, Google’s Postini messaging security software and 25 GB of mailbox space, as well as greater uptime and 24/7 phone support.

The overall move to Google Apps took all of six hours. We waited for the phones to ring, but all we heard was silence – in fact, we sat there playing meebo for quite a while – and still, nothing happened. We cut the cord all in one stroke to avoid the hassle of living in two environments at once. We made the switch globally, all in one day – and, due to the advantages of this cloud computing solution, we’ve never looked back.

Sounds good – the perfect PR story for Google. Until this happened, one year on – it’s Brister again:

We work closely with our 15,000 worldwide customers to deliver solutions that help them be more successful. As a result, we rely heavily on collaboration tools for our employees to share information and work together with customers and partners.

This is one of the chief reasons we’ve chosen to adopt Exchange Online and SharePoint Online together with Office 2010. They deliver trustworthy, enterprise-class solutions – with the performance, security, privacy, reliability and support we require. We know that Microsoft is a leader in the providing these kinds of solutions, and in our discussions with them, it became clear that they are 100% committed to Serena’s success and delivering solutions that drive the future of collaboration.

Using Office, SharePoint and Exchange will allow us to collaborate more effectively internally and with customers and partners, many of whom use the same technologies, and we can do so without having to deal with content loss or clients being unable to open or edit a document. In particular, Exchange is unchallenged in its calendaring and contact management abilities, mission critical functions for a global company such as Serena.

Big change. Leaving aside the fluff about “trustworthy, enterprise-class solutions”, what went wrong? Did the phones start ringing?

I’m guessing that the biggest clue here is the point about many of Serena’s customers using “the same technologies”. Apparently there was friction between Office and Exchange elsewhere, and Google Apps at Serena. Of course this could work the other way, if the day comes when more of your customers are on Google.

Here’s a few more clues from Brister:

There are alternatives on the market that promise lower costs, but in our experience, this is a fallacy. When looking at alternatives, CIOs should really evaluate the total cost of ownership as well as the impact on user productivity and satisfaction, as there can be hidden costs and higher TCO. For instance, slow performance and/or lack of enterprise-class features (e.g., with calendaring and contact management) will torpedo the value of such a backbone system, and may get the CIO fired.

We are currently upgrading to Office 2010, and look forward to taking advantage its hybrid nature– enabling us to embrace the cloud for scale and more rapid technology innovation while preserving what we like about software, including powerful capabilities and the ability to work anywhere – even offline.

Brister again mentions calendaring and contact management. I guess things like those meeting invitations that automatically populate your calendar and which you accept or reject with a click or two. Offline gets a plug too.

Note that Serena has not gone back to on-premise. I’d be interested to know how the cost of the new BPOS solution compares to the “upwards of $1 million” cost which Brister complained about in 2009, for staying on-premise.

Did Microsoft simply buy Serena back? Brister says no:

Since this blog posted, there has been some speculation that our decision to migrate from Google Apps to Microsoft BPOS was based solely on price, and that Microsoft, to quote a favorite film, made us an offer we couldn’t refuse. This is 100% false. Microsoft is not giving us anything for free.

It’s important not to make too much of one case study. Who knows, Brister may be back a year from now with another story. But it shows that Microsoft cannot be counted out when it comes to cloud-hosted Enterprise software. I’d be interested in hearing other accounts of how the “Go Google” switch works out in practice.

On Microsoft: is the sky falling? Remember Netware?

tim — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 10:59:05 +0000

The top story on Guardian Technology right now is a rumour about Google getting rid of Windows. Apparently Google prefers its employees to use Mac or Linux.

Why is this interesting? I suspect because the world is now looking for evidence that Microsoft is failing. Microsoft failing in mobile is one thing, but to fail in its heartland of desktop operating systems is even more interesting. Presuming that Google itself has “gone Google”, it is also a reminder that once you free your organisation from Office and Outlook and Exchange, it also enables you to shift from Windows on the desktop. A side-effect of cloud is choice of local operating system.

Most businesses still run Windows as far as I can tell. Microsoft’s platform is also very broad. I had a discussion with the Windows Embedded team recently about point-of-service and digital signage; interesting stuff, and invisible to most of us.

So the sky is not falling yet. Nevertheless, if these is a public perception that Microsoft is failing to keep pace with new models of computing, that in itself is a serious problem.

I have not forgotten the Novell story. Back in the nineties, everyone knew that Windows NT was supplanting Novell’s Netware. At the same time, everyone knew that Netware was in most respects superior to Windows NT: the directory was more advanced, maintenance was easier, reliability was better. Here’s a blog from 1999 by Nick Holland explaining why:

The general industry perception is that Novell is a "has-been". Microsoft Windows NT is where everyone is going.

I often get people asking me if they should switch to NT, and I ask them why they think they should. The answer: "Well, isn’t everyone else?" The reply: 1) No, they aren’t. 2) even if they were, how does that mandate that you should?

Holland goes on to note that Netware is still more widely used than Windows, and explain in detail why he prefers to install and support Netware. He was a Netware guy defending his choice; but reading his rant a decade later there’s not much to disagree with in his technical assessment.

So why did Windows NT win in the market, against an entrenched and superior alternative? There were several factors. Windows had already won on the client, and Microsoft ensured that it integrated best with its own directory and servers. Second, executives liked the idea of using the same platform on both client and server; support would not be able to blame the other guy. Third, once the perception that everyone was switching to Windows NT took hold, it became self-fulfilling. In the end, that perception may have been the most significant thing.

Today, perception is working against Microsoft. Windows mobile is a shrinking platform. Internet Explorer is losing market share. Microsoft has had the embarrassment of working for years on Tablet PC and Origami (ultra mobile PC), only to have Apple beat it easily with the iPad, its first product launch in that market.

Microsoft’s Brandon LeBlanc takes the Financial Times to task for saying:

Windows is known for being more vulnerable to attacks by hackers and more susceptible to computer viruses than other operating systems.

I don’t doubt the effort Microsoft has made over security for a number of years now, and LeBlanc makes some fair points. Nevertheless, I suspect the general reader will agree with what the FT says. They are more likely to have suffered from malware on a Windows machine, or to have friends that have suffered, than with a Mac or Linux (if they know anyone running Linux). That counts for more than any amount of spin about security enhancements in Windows.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs says, as summarised by Ina Fried:

When we were an agrarian nation, all cars were trucks because that’s what you needed on the farms. Cars became more popular as cities rose, and things like power steering and automatic transmission became popular. PCs are going to be like trucks. They are still going to be around…they are going to be one out of x people. This transformation is going to make some people uneasy…because the PC has taken us a long ways. It’s brilliant. We like to talk about the post-PC era, but when it really starts to happen, it’s uncomfortable.

Jobs is right, though he is focused on the device. He is not an internet guy, and that is a weakness, as John Battelle describes in this iPad post. You can debate whether the future tips more towards Apple or Google. Neither scenario is any comfort to Microsoft.

The sky is not falling yet. Microsoft’s platform is still an important one. Follow the trends though, and they all seem to point to a lesser role for the company in the coming decade than in the last one. Windows 7 surprised us with its quality. We need a few more surprises of equal or greater significance before that perception will change.

Google Chrome Mac and Linux arrives – may hurt Firefox more than Safari

tim — Tue, 25 May 2010 20:52:50 +0000

Today Google announced that Chrome for Mac and Linux is now fully released:

Since last December, we’ve been chipping away at bugs and building in new features to get the Mac and Linux versions caught up with the Windows version, and now we can finally announce that the Mac and Linux versions are ready for prime time.

The two big stories in the browser world right now are the decline of Microsoft Internet Explorer (though it still commands more than half the market in most stats that I see) and the rise of Google Chrome. Why do users like it? From what I’ve seen, they like the performance and the usability. In fact, Chrome would make a great case study on why these factors count for more than features in user satisfaction. That said, I’ve been using Chrome on the Mac today and while it starts up more quickly than Safari, performance overall seems similar and I doubt there will be a huge rush to switch.

In the stats for ITWriting.com, I’ve seen steadily increasing Chrome usage:

July 2009: 4.2%
October 2009: 4.6%
January 2010: 9.6%
May 2010: 13.7%

So far this month, IE is down to 35.3% in the stats here, behind Firefox at 35.9%.

These figures are not representative of the internet as a whole, though I’d argue that it does represent a technical readership which may well be a leading indicator.

Chrome seems to be gradually taking market share from all the major browsers, though IE is doing so badly that any defections from Firefox to Chrome are more then made up by IE defectors to Firefox, if I’m interpreting the stats correctly. This won’t always be the case though, and Mozilla is vulnerable because unlike Microsoft or Apple the browser is the core of its business.

There is also a sense in which Chrome competes with Firefox for the user who has decided not to use the browser that comes with the operating system.

Chrome is strategically important to Google, not just as a browser, but as a platform for applications. It hooks into the Web Store announced at the recent Google I/O conference, and it will soon be easy to create browser applications that run offline. Google has the financial muscle to market Chrome. I’d also suggest that the momentum behind other projects, especially Android but also Google Apps, will indirectly benefit the browser.

On the Mac, it is worth noting that both Safari and Chrome use the same open source WebKit project, sponsored by Apple, which I guess is more interesting now that Google and Apple are competing fiercely in mobile.