Jim Lynch: Off the Top of My Head…

Some dish in the New York Post about a potential Google browser:

Google, $1.67 billion richer from its August initial public offering, is spending its money poaching the brightest minds from arch-rival Microsoft and other tech giants.

Based on the half-dozen hires in recent weeks, Google appears to be planning to launch its own Web browser and other software products to challenge Microsoft.

The company also hired four people who worked on Microsoft’s Web browser, Internet Explorer, and later founded their own company. One of them, Adam Bosworth, is credited with being a driving force not only behind IE, but Microsoft’s database-management program, Access.

Hmmm…very interesting! A Google-ized version of Mozilla/Firefox would be fun to check out. I don’t doubt that this is on their agenda. Ditto with an instant messaging client and other portal type services.

All of this stuff has been done before by Yahoo, MSN, etc. though so whatever Google comes up with needs to be as special as GMail if Google is going to get current MSN/Yahoo/Etc. users to switch. So far Google has been pretty creative in releasing services that break the mold so I’d guess that a Google browser or IM client would contain some very cool twists compared to what’s currently available from other companies.

And one has to ponder this juicy question: What would a Google browser based on Mozilla do for Mozilla’s market share? How would it affect Internet Explorer’s market share? Everybody knows Google even non-techies. Most of them would feel comfortable using something that comes from Google and contains all the usual Google services and tools.

This is a veeeeeeeeeeeeery interesting possibility…stay tuned!

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