Google said August 31 that Sony is bundling the Chrome Web browser on its Sony laptop computers, the search engine company’s first such bundling deal to help the now one year-old browser reach more users. Sony did not respond to requests for comment but a Google spokesperson confirmed to eWEEK that Sony is bundling Chrome. The spokesperson declined to provide financial details but claimed: “Users’ response to Google Chrome has been outstanding, and we’re continuing to explore ways to make Chrome accessible to even more people.”
A friend of mine, who bought Sony Vaio recently, said, that the first thing the laptop did was installing security updates, and after that default browser was reset to IE8. He can’t remember if it was asking for confirmation, because in Vista users are used to clicking Yes automatically.
I didn’t need another reason not to buy Sony computers but here’s a new one, just in case.
Why, don’t you like open-source software?
ANTITRUST!
Sony don’t own Google (nor visa versa) and Chrome still have a minorety browser market share.
So where’s the anti-trust?
Wasn’t serious really, but you never know in these crazy times..
Should Google start ‘encouraging’ other OEMs to promote Chrome through incentives: skyrocking marketshare, a complaint from a GMail competitor that Chrome is favoring the Google app over others, could set it off..
And what with Chrome being the ‘Google OS’ it might be just enough to grab the attention of the DoJ. Maybe Opera will start to think and antitrust complaint is the road to success.
After all, a monopoly isn’t 100% market share, and ‘monopoly abuse’ is subject to interpretation, esp. when Google is shaping up to be the Microsoft of the 2010s.
But again, not being serious – just offering food for thought.
Did you mean: trolling
Anyway, it’s a healthier one. I think only other giants can compete, so the need of corporate monsters and incentivate being more of them can be a solution for monopoly.
We live in the age corporations as those economical empires are more powerful and influential than governments.
Just think of Godzilla, Heedorah and others fighting. Maybe the world will to the corporate wars, but there will be no other choice.
Edited 2009-09-02 12:34 UTC
Getting Chrome bundled at the factory could look anti-competitive – raising antitrust concerns – if the strategy is effective and Chrome gains significant market share.
Companies competing against Google may try to use these concerns as a lever for pressing the government to take action.
Being pursued for antitrust, even if there was no grounds for reasonable complaint to begin with, is not in the interest of any company.
If you had told me in 1989 that Windows was going to be the center of antitrust action against Microsoft I wouldn’t have believed you; Windows was a marginal product that came bundled with some DTP programs, and OS/2 was the future.
What a different a decade makes. I wouldn’t want Google to go down that road, especially when it doesn’t have any clear implications for their core business: advertising.
I don’t think the bit in bold is entirely fair.
Google have always been one of the few “mega-corporations” that have pushed open standards.
They frequently give back to the open source community and don’t tie their users into Googles own lock ins.
Google’s only monopoly, it’s only real business, has been advertising. Chrome, Android, Google Docs, GMail, et al are just means to generate advertising. Thus Google don’t really care what platform you communicate with so long as it can sell the ads.
Where as MS’s business is in software – so they’re best interest is in locking people into their software.
eg:
* Chrome supports open standards – MS IE supports MS’s own standards (albeit ones based on w3c)
* Android can be sync’d on any PC – MS WM can only be officially sync’d in Windows via an MS app (though i admit there are unofficial work arounds)
* Google Docs can be run on any PC and support open formats – MSOffice can only run on Win & OS X and defaults to proprietary formats.
* GMail supports POP3 (thus can run in any e-mail client easily) – MS Hotmail is a PITA to view in any mail client other than MS’s own Outlook clients.
Generally I try and support the smaller companies where-ever I can / it’s not impractical not to, because I like to support freedom and competition. Google seems to support this same philosophy (in about as much a way as any major corporation can) by opening up their products to allow their customers to use said products in conjunction with any other non-Google product that customers should choose to / might prefer to use.
This is something that MS, Apple, and many other of the big names, don’t do.
But as I said before, this is mainly down to the fact that Google (currently) don’t care what software or hardware package combo a user has – just so long as they sell their advertising.
So in short: imo any monopoly Google currently has (and potentially will have in the future) isn’t (wont be) damaging the IT market like MS’s dominance has been
Google has better than many but have some slipped considerably on occasions. Google’s refusal to adopt Ogg Theora even as a alternative in YouTube for streaming videos and insisting on the patent encumbered h.264 codec while justifying it using ridiculous false assertions is one such instance
http://lists.whatwg.org/htdig.cgi/whatwg-whatwg.org/2009-June/02038…
http://hacks.mozilla.org/2009/06/update-on-open-video-quality/
I take your point, and being a google user find that they are excellent and play well with web standards.
But an example: will a Google web browser always play well with other online advertisers?
An AdSense competitor arrives, shrinks Google’s revenue: Will Google not be tempted to tweak their browser a little against the competition?
There is no problem while Chrome has to be downloaded and is the user’s choice. But I think that when/if Chrome becomes the ‘little blue E’ on a users preinstall, they might open themselves up to accusations of antitrust breach.
Personally I would like to see Google remain on a level playing field, and have to pitch for a download rather than become the OEM default.
What the hell are you crapping on about – what you said makes absolutely no sense what so ever. The side effects of monopoly are of little concern with Chrome simply because Apple, Google, Firefox and Opera all have a vested interest in pushing web standards and have no interest in developing a web based on either flash or silverlight. *WORSE* case scenario you’ll see HTML5 development speed up, open video and audio taking hold over flash and the scripting capabilities of Javascript realised instead of developers reliant on what Microsoft and Adobe have to offer. If Chrome does get a monopoly, it’ll be because of people wanting it, and maintaining it will because of a superior product and not because of vender lock in courtesy of proprietary platform specific extensions.
Google could be accused of anticompetitive behavior if they start bundling with OEMs, as a result gain significant market share.
Never said they would be a monopoly, only be in a position where a disgruntled adsense/gmail/chrome competitor can call them that.
Mention ‘monopoly’ in a post it becomes a Rorschach blot.
People could label them as being worse than Stalin, that they kill little puppies and use their entrails to power their server farm – it doesn’t make it right. The only people who would believe the horse crap about Google being a monopoly would be a corrupt public servant with an axe to grind and a politician wanting to make a name for themselves. To claim, “oh, but one of their competitors….”, who cares about their competitors; for all intents and purposes no one is stupid enough, outside of Microsoft to make such a accusation with no evidence to back it up and for it to hold any water. No one would make a public accusation like that unless they had something to gain and there was evidence of it.
More important monopoly means NOTHING in the US regulatory body. The *ONLY* requirement of a monopoly is ensuring they don’t abuse their position by using a monopoly in one area as a leverage to gain marketshare in another area – “if install an alternative browser on Windows, you’ll lose your OEM contract”. Google can’t do what Microsoft did because they don’t control an operating system and thus can’t have an arrangement where the OEM is forced not to install another browser on the same operating system from a different vendor.
Edited 2009-09-03 05:33 UTC