20 Feb 12 Chrome kingpin Pichai promises Android upgrades
In a QA, Chrome leader Sundar Pichai promises the
Android version will improve “by leaps and bounds” and says the browser will make Google money directly.
Sundar Pichai, leader of the Chrome effort, when Google unveiled the first beta of its browser on September 2, 2008.
(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET)
When Google introduced Chrome in September 2008, people laughed at the bare-bones browser–no extensions, no bookmarks, no
Mac version, and who needs yet another browser anyway?
Nobody’s laughing now.
Under the leadership of Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai, though, Chrome dramatically extended its reach. One in five people use Chrome, according to Net Applications. Google uses the browser to push its technology agenda, even when its ideas are unpopular with colleagues in the Web standards world. Chrome is the foundation of the Chrome OS operating system, Google just released Chrome for Android, and under Chief Executive Larry Page, Chrome is one of ten Google divisions. The Chrome Web Store lets people spend money on Web apps. And reflecting the prominence the browser has inside the company, Chrome ads appear on billboards, in subway stations, on TV.
Long gone are the days when merely encouraging browser innovation was a sufficient goal. Chrome has become one of Google’s most important brands and a gateway to its services.
And there are more plans afoot–including improvements to Chrome for Android and making more money directly from Chrome. Pichai described the work in an interview last week with CNET News writer Stephen Shankland. Here’s an edited transcript.
Stephen Shankland: Chrome for Android has been downloaded somewhere between 100,000 and 500,000 times. What do you think of the uptake?
Sundar Pichai: Given that it’s a beta product and only available on ICS [Ice Cream Sandwich, aka Android 4.0, which has only barely penetrated the market], we’re really happy where it is. I think most people haven’t experienced it on
tablets. They will discover a lot of good things there as well. We’ve received positive feedback, and the feature requests are pretty minor.
We are going to continue releasing Chrome for Android at a pretty healthy pace. In a year from now, we’re going to take leaps and bounds.
What do people like and not like?
People generally find it fast. They generally love sync [in which Chrome on a personal computer works shares settings with the Android version]. The tab stack [which lets people switch among browser tabs] people call out and say is visually slick.
For areas for improvement, people want an ability to see the desktop version of sites. That’s a common request. Second is full screen. Both fully make sense. We just want to do them correctly and well.
Third, there have been some questions about Flash [Adobe Systems' browser plug-in]. Following their road map, they clearly said they’ll not support Flash for mobile in the future. They’re investing a lot in HTML5. I don’t expect that to be a major issue, but we will address full-screen and the ability to see desktop versions [of Web sites]. And we’ll definitely bring it to many countries.
As a business, Chrome is a lot about indirect monetization–helping other Google properties make money. But what are the direct monetization possibilities for Chrome?
I wouldn’t underestimate over the long run our business opportunity. We just announced Roche Group completely moved 90,000 employees to Google Apps. A few weeks ago we announced BBVA, with 30,000 employees–a bank in Spain. We see a huge shift in how people see Google Apps in the enterprise. It’s in every vertical, schools, business, government. What’s very interesting: with a lot of recent deployments, they’re deploying Chrome. And over time, we are seeing for Chromebooks a direct monetization model for us.
If you take the Chrome ecosystem as a whole, we are primarily an enabler. Over time, we will participate more directly. You need the marketplace, even in the context of enterprise. You can bring other services with the Chrome Web Store. We are still in the early stages, when people only compare the Chrome Web Store to the mobile app stores. We see millions of installs today, but a lot of it is of a free nature, and a lot are just bookmarks. But for example with Native Client, Bastion, which you can play on your Xbox, is available on the Chrome Web Store.
Mozilla is concerned that the Chrome Web Store fragments the ecosystem by promoting Chrome-only apps.
We all are working hard to push Web apps as much as possible. If you look at the plan they outlined for Firefox, they have similar aspects as well. Because we can push to HTML5, we will do so. We deprecated Gears [a browser plug-in Google canceled in favor of related Web standards]. I see the same approach with the Web store. We are deeply, deeply committed to standards. We will always make sure HTML is the way most features are delivered.
Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Chrome, speaking at Google I/O in May 2011.
(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET)
I am personally convinced that doing Gears really helped offline HTML [in which Web apps work even without a network connection] happen faster. I’m absolutely convinced adding things in the Web store will only make it come faster.
You’ve introduced Dart, an attempt to improve on JavaScript. Are you concerned that will fragment the Web by leading to multiple programming languages for Web apps and browsers?
We are being very thoughtful about it. When you do something aspirational and ambitions, you want to be thoughtful about it. We announced it as early as we possible can. We continue to do everything with JavaScript. We are working on a way by which you can compile down to JavaScript with Dart so it is backward compatible, so isn’t as if you wrote in Dart it won’t work. I’m absolutely convinced this is all for the benefit of users and developers.
We have a track record we can point to. In every instance we have taken a clear push in the direction of standards. Look at O3D. We did a bunch of 3D work. There wa a lot of momentum around WebGL. We announced we’d put all our efforts behind it. We migrated away from O3D and embraced WebGL and put it in Chrome.
When you launched Chromebooks, you said they’d be good for both consumers and enterprises. Which is the stronger business?
We are deeply interested in selling these to schools and businesses. Schools and businesses are a much more straightforward channel. And we are seeing a very strong connection to Google Apps. We have some large deployments.
Samsung’s Series 5 Chromebook, one current manifestation of Chrome OS.
It’s very similar with what we saw with Google Apps years ago. In companies, we are seeing pilot projects. It is a long sales cycle game.
With consumers, we are very comfortable where we are. We have only made it available online through Amazon and BestBuy.com. There are many times it’s been in top 20 in Amazon, the top 5 and top 10 at times. We don’t have a retail push or any significant marketing push on the consumer side today. In this industry, to move a lot of volume, you need to push it. We’ve deliberately held back.
It’s a long journey. We’re deeply committed to it. We only want people who really want it [to buy it].
You talk about how Chrome OS improves steadily with the constant updates. Can you give examples of what’s gotten better?
The biggest value proposition of Chrome is that we improve the experience over time. We’ve done it. We can measure it. If you add up the improvement in resume times [waking from sleep], my sense is we get anywhere from 30 to 50 percent faster from the first time we shipped it.
A lot of improvements in R19 [Chrome OS version 19, soon to become a developer release] are GPU improvements. Scrolling is going to feel a lot faster. The Chromebooks have a limited GPU. You won’t see same improvement as on MacBook Air, but you will still see it on a Chromebook.
Have you thought about changing the direction of trackpad gestures to match Mac OS X’s newer “natural scrolling”?
Making the scroll smooth is really complex. Changing the direction is a trivial thing. We haven’t worried about it that much. With Chrome on Android and tablets, I think it will force the issue somewhat.
I’ve been frustrated with how slow my Chromebook is. I’m down with the Chrome OS vision, but it’s so slow that I prefer using other computers.
We remain very excited about Chromebooks. We got a lot of positive feedback, and
we are really looking forward to the next generation of Chromebooks. We will improve on the dimensions of speed, simplicity, and security.
So Chromebooks won’t fade away?
We need to fundamentally push the Web to a much better place. It’s being challenged with app stores and native apps. There’s so much call for innovation.
Article source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57380253-264/chrome-kingpin-pichai-promises-android-upgrades/?part=rss&subj=software&tag=title
Tags: Chrome OS, Chrome Web Store, So Chromebooks, Stephen Shankland
20 Feb 12 Chrome kingpin Pichai promises Android upgrades
In a QA, Chrome leader Sundar Pichai promises the
Android version will improve “by leaps and bounds” and says the browser will make Google money directly.
Sundar Pichai, leader of the Chrome effort, when Google unveiled the first beta of its browser on September 2, 2008.
(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET)
When Google introduced Chrome in September 2008, people laughed at the bare-bones browser–no extensions, no bookmarks, no
Mac version, and who needs yet another browser anyway?
Nobody’s laughing now.
Under the leadership of Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai, though, Chrome dramatically extended its reach. One in five people use Chrome, according to Net Applications. Google uses the browser to push its technology agenda, even when its ideas are unpopular with colleagues in the Web standards world. Chrome is the foundation of the Chrome OS operating system, Google just released Chrome for Android, and under Chief Executive Larry Page, Chrome is one of ten Google divisions. The Chrome Web Store lets people spend money on Web apps. And reflecting the prominence the browser has inside the company, Chrome ads appear on billboards, in subway stations, on TV.
Long gone are the days when merely encouraging browser innovation was a sufficient goal. Chrome has become one of Google’s most important brands and a gateway to its services.
And there are more plans afoot–including improvements to Chrome for Android and making more money directly from Chrome. Pichai described the work in an interview last week with CNET News writer Stephen Shankland. Here’s an edited transcript.
Stephen Shankland: Chrome for Android has been downloaded somewhere between 100,000 and 500,000 times. What do you think of the uptake?
Sundar Pichai: Given that it’s a beta product and only available on ICS [Ice Cream Sandwich, aka Android 4.0, which has only barely penetrated the market], we’re really happy where it is. I think most people haven’t experienced it on
tablets. They will discover a lot of good things there as well. We’ve received positive feedback, and the feature requests are pretty minor.
We are going to continue releasing Chrome for Android at a pretty healthy pace. In a year from now, we’re going to take leaps and bounds.
What do people like and not like?
People generally find it fast. They generally love sync [in which Chrome on a personal computer works shares settings with the Android version]. The tab stack [which lets people switch among browser tabs] people call out and say is visually slick.
For areas for improvement, people want an ability to see the desktop version of sites. That’s a common request. Second is full screen. Both fully make sense. We just want to do them correctly and well.
Third, there have been some questions about Flash [Adobe Systems' browser plug-in]. Following their road map, they clearly said they’ll not support Flash for mobile in the future. They’re investing a lot in HTML5. I don’t expect that to be a major issue, but we will address full-screen and the ability to see desktop versions [of Web sites]. And we’ll definitely bring it to many countries.
As a business, Chrome is a lot about indirect monetization–helping other Google properties make money. But what are the direct monetization possibilities for Chrome?
I wouldn’t underestimate over the long run our business opportunity. We just announced Roche Group completely moved 90,000 employees to Google Apps. A few weeks ago we announced BBVA, with 30,000 employees–a bank in Spain. We see a huge shift in how people see Google Apps in the enterprise. It’s in every vertical, schools, business, government. What’s very interesting: with a lot of recent deployments, they’re deploying Chrome. And over time, we are seeing for Chromebooks a direct monetization model for us.
If you take the Chrome ecosystem as a whole, we are primarily an enabler. Over time, we will participate more directly. You need the marketplace, even in the context of enterprise. You can bring other services with the Chrome Web Store. We are still in the early stages, when people only compare the Chrome Web Store to the mobile app stores. We see millions of installs today, but a lot of it is of a free nature, and a lot are just bookmarks. But for example with Native Client, Bastion, which you can play on your Xbox, is available on the Chrome Web Store.
Mozilla is concerned that the Chrome Web Store fragments the ecosystem by promoting Chrome-only apps.
We all are working hard to push Web apps as much as possible. If you look at the plan they outlined for Firefox, they have similar aspects as well. Because we can push to HTML5, we will do so. We deprecated Gears [a browser plug-in Google canceled in favor of related Web standards]. I see the same approach with the Web store. We are deeply, deeply committed to standards. We will always make sure HTML is the way most features are delivered.
Sundar Pichai, senior vice president of Chrome, speaking at Google I/O in May 2011.
(Credit:
Stephen Shankland/CNET)
I am personally convinced that doing Gears really helped offline HTML [in which Web apps work even without a network connection] happen faster. I’m absolutely convinced adding things in the Web store will only make it come faster.
You’ve introduced Dart, an attempt to improve on JavaScript. Are you concerned that will fragment the Web by leading to multiple programming languages for Web apps and browsers?
We are being very thoughtful about it. When you do something aspirational and ambitions, you want to be thoughtful about it. We announced it as early as we possible can. We continue to do everything with JavaScript. We are working on a way by which you can compile down to JavaScript with Dart so it is backward compatible, so isn’t as if you wrote in Dart it won’t work. I’m absolutely convinced this is all for the benefit of users and developers.
We have a track record we can point to. In every instance we have taken a clear push in the direction of standards. Look at O3D. We did a bunch of 3D work. There wa a lot of momentum around WebGL. We announced we’d put all our efforts behind it. We migrated away from O3D and embraced WebGL and put it in Chrome.
When you launched Chromebooks, you said they’d be good for both consumers and enterprises. Which is the stronger business?
We are deeply interested in selling these to schools and businesses. Schools and businesses are a much more straightforward channel. And we are seeing a very strong connection to Google Apps. We have some large deployments.
Samsung’s Series 5 Chromebook, one current manifestation of Chrome OS.
It’s very similar with what we saw with Google Apps years ago. In companies, we are seeing pilot projects. It is a long sales cycle game.
With consumers, we are very comfortable where we are. We have only made it available online through Amazon and BestBuy.com. There are many times it’s been in top 20 in Amazon, the top 5 and top 10 at times. We don’t have a retail push or any significant marketing push on the consumer side today. In this industry, to move a lot of volume, you need to push it. We’ve deliberately held back.
It’s a long journey. We’re deeply committed to it. We only want people who really want it [to buy it].
You talk about how Chrome OS improves steadily with the constant updates. Can you give examples of what’s gotten better?
The biggest value proposition of Chrome is that we improve the experience over time. We’ve done it. We can measure it. If you add up the improvement in resume times [waking from sleep], my sense is we get anywhere from 30 to 50 percent faster from the first time we shipped it.
A lot of improvements in R19 [Chrome OS version 19, soon to become a developer release] are GPU improvements. Scrolling is going to feel a lot faster. The Chromebooks have a limited GPU. You won’t see same improvement as on MacBook Air, but you will still see it on a Chromebook.
Have you thought about changing the direction of trackpad gestures to match Mac OS X’s newer “natural scrolling”?
Making the scroll smooth is really complex. Changing the direction is a trivial thing. We haven’t worried about it that much. With Chrome on Android and tablets, I think it will force the issue somewhat.
I’ve been frustrated with how slow my Chromebook is. I’m down with the Chrome OS vision, but it’s so slow that I prefer using other computers.
We remain very excited about Chromebooks. We got a lot of positive feedback, and
we are really looking forward to the next generation of Chromebooks. We will improve on the dimensions of speed, simplicity, and security.
So Chromebooks won’t fade away?
We need to fundamentally push the Web to a much better place. It’s being challenged with app stores and native apps. There’s so much call for innovation.
Article source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-57380253-264/chrome-kingpin-pichai-promises-android-upgrades/
Tags: Chrome OS, Chrome Web Store, So Chromebooks, Stephen Shankland
20 Feb 12 Google’s Chrome/Apps VP: It’s ‘early days’ for Chrome Web Store
The Chrome Web Store, open to developers since mid-2010 and to end users since late 2010, is still at a nascent stage, but
has the potential to succeed in a major way, according to a Google executive.
So far in this initial phase, Google feels it has done a good job promoting the idea of apps running within a desktop browser
to consumers, as evidenced by the fact that the Store’s app installs have doubled in the past three months, said Sundar Pichai,
Google’s senior vice president of Chrome and Apps.
Currently, Chrome browser users install about 1 million applications from the store every day, he said during an appearance
at the Goldman Sachs Technology Internet Conference, where he answered questions from a financial analyst and from audience
members.
“We’re pretty excited about the opportunity there, but it’s still early days,” he said.
The next stage is for developers to start earning money from apps, whether by selling them outright or through in-app payment
features, according to Pichai.
There will be a “whole slew” of new game applications added to the store, along with more productivity applications, he said.
Asked about the Google Apps collaboration and communication suite, Pichai acknowledged that most customers are still small
and medium-size businesses, but that there has been a shift toward acceptance in the past six months by CIOs of large enterprises.
As a result, Google is seeing Apps adoption among large companies and organizations accelerate, he said, offering as examples
two recent big customer wins: Spain’s Banco Bilbao Vizcaya, which will roll out Apps to its 110,000 employees worldwide, and
Roche Group, which will adopt Apps for its 90,000 employees globally.
“That’s a profound shift we’re seeing,” he said.
Large companies’ privacy and security concerns about the cloud-hosted model of collaboration and communication suites like
Google Apps have lessened, he said.
CIOs also used to worry a lot more about the “feature gap” between the Docs productivity suite of Google Apps and an on-premise
competitor like Microsoft Office, but now their priorities have started to shift, he said.
Now, it’s becoming more important for enterprises to have a productivity suite that can be deployed across multiple devices,
including phones and tablets employees bring to work from home, he said.
“The current model of how you use productivity apps is extremely tied to a Windows-centric view of how you use them,” he said,
adding that as that model changes, the “value proposition” of Google Apps gets a boost.
Of course, archrival Microsoft sees things differently. Asked for comment about Google’s announcement of its Roche Group customer
win on Thursday, Microsoft said via email that the announcement is an attempt by Google to “build credibility with the enterprise
audience.”
“As Google’s past history has shown, winning customers is one thing, keeping them is another,” Microsoft said.
Microsoft has said that Office 2010 is the fastest-selling consumer version of Office in history: A copy is sold worldwide
every second. Office 365, the cloud suite Microsoft launched last year as a Google Apps competitor, is on track to become
one of Microsoft’s fastest-selling products ever, it said. And about 80 million people use cloud applications from Microsoft,
including Office 365, its predecessor Business Productivity Online Suite and the Live@edu suite for schools and universities.
Article source: http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/021712-googles-chromeapps-vp-its-early-256315.html
Tags: Chrome Web Store, Google Apps, Microsoft Office, Roche Group
19 Feb 12 Google’s Chrome/Apps VP: It’s ‘early days’ for Chrome Web Store
The Chrome Web Store, open to developers since mid-2010 and to end users since late 2010, is still at a nascent stage, but has the potential to succeed in a major way, according to a Google executive.
So far in this initial phase, Google feels it has done a good job promoting the idea of apps running within a desktop browser to consumers, as evidenced by the fact that the Store’s app installs have doubled in the past three months, said Sundar Pichai, Google’s senior vice president of Chrome and Apps.
Currently, Chrome browser users install about 1 million applications from the store every day, he said during an appearance at the Goldman Sachs Technology Internet Conference, where he answered questions from a financial analyst and from audience members.
“We’re pretty excited about the opportunity there, but it’s still early days,” he said.
The next stage is for developers to start earning money from apps, whether by selling them outright or through in-app payment features, according to Pichai.
There will be a “whole slew” of new game applications added to the store, along with more productivity applications, he said.
Asked about the Google Apps collaboration and communication suite, Pichai acknowledged that most customers are still small and medium-size businesses, but that there has been a shift toward acceptance in the past six months by CIOs of large enterprises.
As a result, Google is seeing Apps adoption among large companies and organizations accelerate, he said, offering as examples two recent big customer wins: Spain’s Banco Bilbao Vizcaya, which will roll out Apps to its 110,000 employees worldwide, and Roche Group, which will adopt Apps for its 90,000 employees globally.
“That’s a profound shift we’re seeing,” he said.
Large companies’ privacy and security concerns about the cloud-hosted model of collaboration and communication suites like Google Apps have lessened, he said.
CIOs also used to worry a lot more about the “feature gap” between the Docs productivity suite of Google Apps and an on-premise competitor like Microsoft Office, but now their priorities have started to shift, he said.
Now, it’s becoming more important for enterprises to have a productivity suite that can be deployed across multiple devices, including phones and tablets employees bring to work from home, he said.
“The current model of how you use productivity apps is extremely tied to a Windows-centric view of how you use them,” he said, adding that as that model changes, the “value proposition” of Google Apps gets a boost.
Of course, archrival Microsoft sees things differently. Asked for comment about Google’s announcement of its Roche Group customer win on Thursday, Microsoft said via email that the announcement is an attempt by Google to “build credibility with the enterprise audience.”
“As Google’s past history has shown, winning customers is one thing, keeping them is another,” Microsoft said.
Microsoft has said that Office 2010 is the fastest-selling consumer version of Office in history: A copy is sold worldwide every second. Office 365, the cloud suite Microsoft launched last year as a Google Apps competitor, is on track to become one of Microsoft’s fastest-selling products ever, it said. And about 80 million people use cloud applications from Microsoft, including Office 365, its predecessor Business Productivity Online Suite and the Live@edu suite for schools and universities.
Juan Carlos Perez covers enterprise communication/collaboration suites, operating systems, browsers and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Juan on Twitter at @JuanCPerezIDG.
Article source: http://www.techworld.com.au/article/415843/google_chrome_apps_vp_it_early_days_chrome_web_store/
Tags: Chrome Web Store, Google Apps, Juan Carlos Perez, Roche Group
18 Feb 12 Google’s Chrome/Apps VP: It’s ‘early Days’ for Chrome Web Store
The Chrome Web Store, open to developers since mid-2010 and to end users since late 2010, is still at a nascent stage, but has the potential to succeed in a major way, according to a Google executive.
So far in this initial phase, Google feels it has done a good job promoting the idea of apps running within a desktop browser to consumers, as evidenced by the fact that the Store’s app installs have doubled in the past three months, said Sundar Pichai, Google’s senior vice president of Chrome and Apps.
Currently, Chrome browser users install about 1 million applications from the store every day, he said during an appearance at the Goldman Sachs Technology Internet Conference, where he answered questions from a financial analyst and from audience members.
“We’re pretty excited about the opportunity there, but it’s still early days,” he said.
The next stage is for developers to start earning money from apps, whether by selling them outright or through in-app payment features, according to Pichai.
There will be a “whole slew” of new game applications added to the store, along with more productivity applications, he said.
Asked about the Google Apps collaboration and communication suite, Pichai acknowledged that most customers are still small and medium-size businesses, but that there has been a shift toward acceptance in the past six months by CIOs of large enterprises.
As a result, Google is seeing Apps adoption among large companies and organizations accelerate, he said, offering as examples two recent big customer wins: Spain’s Banco Bilbao Vizcaya, which will roll out Apps to its 110,000 employees worldwide, and Roche Group, which will adopt Apps for its 90,000 employees globally.
“That’s a profound shift we’re seeing,” he said.
Large companies’ privacy and security concerns about the cloud-hosted model of collaboration and communication suites like Google Apps have lessened, he said.
CIOs also used to worry a lot more about the “feature gap” between the Docs productivity suite of Google Apps and an on-premise competitor like Microsoft Office, but now their priorities have started to shift, he said.
Now, it’s becoming more important for enterprises to have a productivity suite that can be deployed across multiple devices, including phones and tablets employees bring to work from home, he said.
“The current model of how you use productivity apps is extremely tied to a Windows-centric view of how you use them,” he said, adding that as that model changes, the “value proposition” of Google Apps gets a boost.
Of course, archrival Microsoft sees things differently. Asked for comment about Google’s announcement of its Roche Group customer win on Thursday, Microsoft said via email that the announcement is an attempt by Google to “build credibility with the enterprise audience.”
“As Google’s past history has shown, winning customers is one thing, keeping them is another,” Microsoft said.
Microsoft has said that Office 2010 is the fastest-selling consumer version of Office in history: A copy is sold worldwide every second. Office 365, the cloud suite Microsoft launched last year as a Google Apps competitor, is on track to become one of Microsoft’s fastest-selling products ever, it said. And about 80 million people use cloud applications from Microsoft, including Office 365, its predecessor Business Productivity Online Suite and the Live@edu suite for schools and universities.
Juan Carlos Perez covers enterprise communication/collaboration suites, operating systems, browsers and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Juan on Twitter at @JuanCPerezIDG.
Article source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/250226/googles_chromeapps_vp_its_early_days_for_chrome_web_store.html
Tags: Chrome Web Store, Google Apps, Juan Carlos Perez, Roche Group
17 Feb 12 Google's Chrome/Apps VP: It's 'early Days' for Chrome Web Store
The Chrome Web Store, open to developers since mid-2010 and to end users since late 2010, is still at a nascent stage, but has the potential to succeed in a major way, according to a Google executive.
So far in this initial phase, Google feels it has done a good job promoting the idea of apps running within a desktop browser to consumers, as evidenced by the fact that the Store’s app installs have doubled in the past three months, said Sundar Pichai, Google’s senior vice president of Chrome and Apps.
Currently, Chrome browser users install about 1 million applications from the store every day, he said during an appearance at the Goldman Sachs Technology Internet Conference, where he answered questions from a financial analyst and from audience members.
“We’re pretty excited about the opportunity there, but it’s still early days,” he said.
The next stage is for developers to start earning money from apps, whether by selling them outright or through in-app payment features, according to Pichai.
There will be a “whole slew” of new game applications added to the store, along with more productivity applications, he said.
Asked about the Google Apps collaboration and communication suite, Pichai acknowledged that most customers are still small and medium-size businesses, but that there has been a shift toward acceptance in the past six months by CIOs of large enterprises.
As a result, Google is seeing Apps adoption among large companies and organizations accelerate, he said, offering as examples two recent big customer wins: Spain’s Banco Bilbao Vizcaya, which will roll out Apps to its 110,000 employees worldwide, and Roche Group, which will adopt Apps for its 90,000 employees globally.
“That’s a profound shift we’re seeing,” he said.
Large companies’ privacy and security concerns about the cloud-hosted model of collaboration and communication suites like Google Apps have lessened, he said.
CIOs also used to worry a lot more about the “feature gap” between the Docs productivity suite of Google Apps and an on-premise competitor like Microsoft Office, but now their priorities have started to shift, he said.
Now, it’s becoming more important for enterprises to have a productivity suite that can be deployed across multiple devices, including phones and tablets employees bring to work from home, he said.
“The current model of how you use productivity apps is extremely tied to a Windows-centric view of how you use them,” he said, adding that as that model changes, the “value proposition” of Google Apps gets a boost.
Of course, archrival Microsoft sees things differently. Asked for comment about Google’s announcement of its Roche Group customer win on Thursday, Microsoft said via email that the announcement is an attempt by Google to “build credibility with the enterprise audience.”
“As Google’s past history has shown, winning customers is one thing, keeping them is another,” Microsoft said.
Microsoft has said that Office 2010 is the fastest-selling consumer version of Office in history: A copy is sold worldwide every second. Office 365, the cloud suite Microsoft launched last year as a Google Apps competitor, is on track to become one of Microsoft’s fastest-selling products ever, it said. And about 80 million people use cloud applications from Microsoft, including Office 365, its predecessor Business Productivity Online Suite and the Live@edu suite for schools and universities.
Juan Carlos Perez covers enterprise communication/collaboration suites, operating systems, browsers and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Follow Juan on Twitter at @JuanCPerezIDG.
Article source: http://www.pcworld.com/article/250226/googles_chromeapps_vp_its_early_days_for_chrome_web_store.html
Tags: Chrome Web Store, Google Apps, Juan Carlos Perez, Roche Group
15 Feb 12 Chrome Web Store Gets Subcategories, But Not For Extensions
When you compare the Chrome Web Store to the Mozilla Add-ons Repository, you will notice that the former offers little sorting and customization options. Up until now you saw a list of recommended apps and extensions on the front page, with options to change the listing to popular items instead of display apps or extensions in one of the broad categories listed on the page.
The store offered no sorting options by release date, rating or update day which makes it a lot harder to find new and exciting extensions and apps in the store.
Another issue was the fact that developers and companies could add their apps to two different categories, so that users would find duplicate listings in the store.
Google today announced a change to the Chrome Web Store that is changing some of the issues for the better. The store now lists apps only in the primary category, and ignores the secondary category listing, which should reduce the number of dupes to zero in the store.
Google furthermore has added subcategories to all primary app categories in the store. The Education category now for instance lists Academic Resources, Family, Foreign Languages and Teacher Admin Tools as subcategories.
The Business Tools app category has been added along with its four subcategories, and the Shopping category has been moved to become a subcategory of the Lifestyle category.
Google hopes that the new system will improve app discoverability in the store. Google plans to introduce new subcategories once enough apps are available to fill it in the store.
Extensions on the other hand have not received the same treatment. They are still lumped together in 12 categories without any serious sorting or filtering options. The Social Communication apps listing for instance now includes five subcategories, while the same named extension category none.
Google in my personal opinion should consider adding filtering and sorting options both to extensions and apps listed in the Chrome Web Store. There is simply no reason not to display a list of newly added apps or extensions in the store for instance.
What’s your take on the store?
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Google Chrome Extensions Manager
Google Chrome Extensions Gallery Gets Developer Signup Fee
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Article source: http://www.ghacks.net/2012/02/15/chrome-web-store-gets-subcategories-but-not-for-extensions/
Tags: Academic Resources, Chrome Web Store, RSS, Wednesday February
13 Feb 12 Chrome Web Store
Mozilla’s plan for 2012: Break the ecosystem lock
Mozilla is best known as the developer of Firefox, but it’s reaching well beyond the browser with a 2012 strategy that strives to use the open Web to counteract ecosystem lock-in.
Firefox embodied Mozilla’s effort to counter the damage that Microsoft’s browser dominance caused on the Web. But now, as revealed in Mozilla 2012 plans published Sunday, the non-profit organization is putting the crosshairs on other big competitors, too: Apple, Google, and Amazon.
Those companies, along with Microsoft, each are building an ecosystem encompassing devices, operating systems, app stores, and apps. People should be worried about getting more
Article source: http://news.cnet.com/posts/?keyword=Chrome+Web+Store
Tags: Chrome Web Store
12 Feb 12 Chrome for android: Is it as good as it sounds?
Remember the time when Firefox used to rule the roost? Yeah, the naive, good-old days. Along came Google’s bastion Chrome, born out of the open-source ambitious Chromium project that sought to make the web better by making it simpler.. Every time we talked about mobile web browsers, the question of why Chrome wasn’t on Android stuck out like a sore thumb, demanding immediate attention. Lo and behold people, the wait is finally over. Google released a beta version of the distinguished browser for their mobile platform last week, to much aplomb.
With quite a few new tricks up its sleeve, Chrome brings most of its signature feature-set to the portable world. There’s the omnibox (the unified address cum search bar), true tabbed browsing, Autofill and Autocomplete baked in and Incognito browsing, all delivered to you at the precipitous rate you’ve come to expect.
Advanced aspects like multiprocess browsing (allowing you to sign in with different credentials on different tabs, with tab sandboxing that isolates each tab process as a cushion against crashes), full Chrome Sync support (which can even sync your entire session between the mobile and desktop version, in real-time) and tab scrolling (intuitive flick-based tab views at a glance, akin to a deck of cards) also cement their way into the app, implanting it with tremendous potential.
There’s still much to be desired, though. The confirmed lack of Flash support (forever) may not affect many, but is still odd, and let’s just say that with the Chrome Web Store doing as well as it is, we’d love to see extensibility implemented here. Never mind the fact that the release only works on Ice Cream Sandwich gadgets right now. If you own an ICS-enabled device, though, you can get it right now on the Android Marketplace.
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Article source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/sci-tech/gadgets/chrome-android-it-good-it-sounds-509
Tags: Android Marketplace, Chrome Sync, Chrome Web Store, ICS
12 Feb 12 Chrome Comment Save Keeps A History Of All Your Web Comments
Keeping track of all the comments that you leave on the Internet can be quite the daunting task. While some plugins, like Disqus, allow you to keep track of comments that you left on sites that use the commenting plugin, there is nothing available that is working on all sites out there.
That leaves you with third party tools or a really good memory. Comment Save for Chrome is one of those third party tools that keeps track of all comments that you leave on the Internet. It is like your own personal commenting history.
The extension keeps track of all your comments directly after installation. There is no need for configuration, it works right out of the box. Comments are saved in realtime, which means that you can use it for restoration purposes as well. That’s useful if the comment won’t post for whatever reason, for instance if the browser hangs or crashes before you were able to post it, or if you have accidentally opened another link in that tab.
Comment Save adds an icon to Chrome’s address bar that displays the last comment that you wrote.
Here you can copy the last comment made to the clipboard, click through to the page you left the comment, or open the history of all your recent comments.
The Chrome extension keeps track of comments indefinitely. You can change that by enabling the timed deletion option which configures the add-on to delete comments automatically once they have past a select timeframe.
The very same page lists all the comments that have not been deleted yet. You see the page title, the actual comment and the date and time it was posted by you. A click on the page title opens the page in the same browser tab.
You can furthermore delete comments selectively here, and configure filters to prevent the comments from being recorded on select websites.
Comment Save should work on most Internet sites that allow you to post comments. Chrome users can download the extension from the official Chrome Web Store.
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Author: Martin Brinkmann, Sunday February 12, 2012 –
Tags:comments, google chrome extensions
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Article source: http://www.ghacks.net/2012/02/12/chrome-comment-save-keeps-a-history-of-all-your-web-comments/
Tags: Author Martin Brinkmann, Chrome Web Store, Comment Save, Sunday February