Does Google's Chrome Need More Polish? - Page 2

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Why bother?

For its part, a Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) spokesperson only had a brief comment on the decision to go gold after four months.

"Each product development team determines its own criteria for coming out of beta. With Google Chrome, we set standards for stability and performance and remove the beta label on a particular release when we meet those standards. We will continue to introduce new features in beta and release them more broadly when they meet these standards," the company said to InternetNews.com in a statement.

It's not easy to pin down why Google released Chrome as a final product since it changed its story. When Chrome first came out, Google said Chrome was a lab experiment of sorts for Google to try out "more radical things" and not use the Firefox browser as a test bed for its ideas.

But when it released the final Chrome code, Chrome wasn't a lab experiment any more. Google changed its story, saying it wanted to make the Web "a better experience for users."

While it's a nice browser, Scott Fulton, managing editor of BetaNews, admits he's not sure why we need it. "Whenever I do use Chrome, I can’t seem to get a handle on what its value proposition is supposed to be. In other words, Google has yet to come up with a way for users to fill in the blank in the sentence, 'I use Chrome instead of IE or Firefox or Opera because blank'," he said in an e-mailed comment.

Part of a secret operating system?

Google may or may not have a secret operating system project in the works, one that mimics the interface of the Android operating system for mobile phones, but for PCs. If it does, it would fit with Google's revised mission statement for Chrome, "to build a browser to give users a better experience of the Web."

If such a plan is in the works, then it would make sense for Google to push ahead quickly with the front end of its "operating system" and get people using it. Ray Valdes, an analyst with Gartner, said he has not heard of an OS from the company, but wouldn't be surprised.

"The thing about Google is they have a very broad reach, and hopefully that reach won't exceed their grasp," he said. "They are dabbling in certain things like virtual health. They're buying telecom infrastructure. I wouldn't be surprised if they launched their own satellite. Certainly an OS is not that far a field to buying fiber optic lines."

Perhaps Google's browser is a new UI to the cloud.