Last night I got an automated email from Google (see below), it basically announces that they will be phasing out their compatibility with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer for pretty much all google products – Gmail, Docs, Google Maps, etc. As you’ve probably noticed, Google has been pushing its new browser ‘Chrome’ pretty hard recently – which in itself I find quite weird. I mean when has Google ever promoted a product on brand over technology, let alone on billboards everywhere. Google has always been (and still is overall) a company with products of such quality, that tactics involving billboard advertising and the like, have never been necessary. I started using Google products because I’d heard they were the best, and continue using them because they are the best… Until Chrome came along.
When it comes to browsers, Firefox really is the best there is, and Internet Explorer the worst. Unfortunately, by default (due to the pedestrian PC public not knowing better) Internet Explorer is still the most used browser there is, and Firefox 2nd. The thing is – and this is where it feels a little unfair – Google has the power and money to make Chrome the most popular browser around without it actually being any better than Firefox. I don’t doubt that Google will in time make Chrome the best browser there is, after all – they have a rep to protect (Grease 2), and they’re good at that kind of thing anyway. On top of that, once they’ve upstaged Firefox, and taken the lead, they can just mimick and learn from everything Firefox has pioneered since its conception, and do it even better perhaps.
Now I’m not the kind of person to moan about this sort of thing, we live in a dog eat dog world, I love it, it keeps us on our toes. BUT, what this highlights, is how little attention the government / office of fair trading pays to the Internet. In any other industry, if an individual company had the power, money, and control that Google has at the moment, and has been allowed to aquire, you can guarantee a monopoly/oligopoly/somethingopoly would have been called out. The irony in this is that the whole situation reminds me of what Microsoft went through years ago, and now Google are fucking Microsoft using similar tactics.
So lets see what happens, my bet is that a whole load of regulation, and ‘why didn’t you do something sooner’ accusations are on their way. The upside to all this is that all this power and control is actually in good hands, Google are pretty great, and I suspect they know what’s coming – for now they get to be cowboys, good cowboys.
P.S. At the beginning of this I started trying to create some kind of analogy where google was a type of smack, and internet browsers were needles, and they’d got us all hooked on Google Smack, and then brought out a new special type of needle, which only worked with Google smack… etc etc… I then gave up and reminded myself that there is a very good reason why I don’t write.
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Dear Google Apps admin,
In order to continue to improve our products and deliver more sophisticated features and performance, we are harnessing some of the latest improvements in web browser technology. This includes faster JavaScript processing and new standards like HTML5. As a result, over the course of 2010, we will be phasing out support for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as other older browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers.
We plan to begin phasing out support of these older browsers on the Google Docs suite and the Google Sites editor on March 1, 2010. After that point, certain functionality within these applications may have higher latency and may not work correctly in these older browsers. Later in 2010, we will start to phase out support for these browsers for Google Mail and Google Calendar.
Google Apps will continue to support Internet Explorer 7.0 and above, Firefox 3.0 and above, Google Chrome 4.0 and above, and Safari 3.0 and above.
Starting this week, users on these older browsers will see a message in Google Docs and the Google Sites editor explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser. We will also alert you again closer to March 1 to remind you of this change.
In 2009, the Google Apps team delivered more than 100 improvements to enhance your product experience. We are aiming to beat that in 2010 and continue to deliver the best and most innovative collaboration products for businesses.
Thank you for your continued support!
Sincerely,
The Google Apps team
Email preferences: You have received this mandatory email service announcement to update you about important changes to your Google Apps product or account.
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043
