What chrome means for Microsoft

Ina FriedbrAiming to react quickly to Google's Chrome announcement, Microsoft focused on how Chrome stacks up against Internet Explorer. brThe browser landscape is highly competitive, but people will choose Internet Explorer 8 for the way it puts the services they want right at their fingertips, respects their personal choices about how they want to browse and, more than any other browsing technology, puts them in control.brHopefully for Redmond, though, it recognizes this as far more than an attack on Internet Explorer 8. Google was already a big supporter and partner of Mozilla. If it really just wanted a better browser, it would have just stepped up its investment in Firefox. brIn Google's own words, Chrome is as much about being a platform for Web applications as it is a means for viewing Web pages. brWhat we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for Web pages and applications, and that's what we set out to build, Google said on the company's official blog. brAlthough today one needs Windows to run Chrome (Mac and Linux versions are coming soon), it is not hard to see how Chrome is a threat to Microsoft's operating system dominance. brImagine, in the not too distant future, a Linux-based machine with Chrome and lots of Chrome apps. Hmm...That's starting to sound like a pretty big threat to Microsoft indeed. br— Internet