Google Nears Release of Chrome Web Browser Beta for Mac

Google is nearing the launch of a beta version of it Chrome browser for Mac OS X users.

It has been over a year since Google released the initial beta version of its Chrome Web browser software. The Chrome browser was taken out of beta, then put back into beta, and finally taken back out of beta a few months ago. Until now, though, there has not been a version of Chrome for Mac OS X users.

That is about to change...mostly. Google has set a deadline to release a Mac OS X-compatible version of the Chrome Web browser by the end of 2009. However, in order to meet that deadline it is eliminating features that are found in the current Windows version.

Absent from the initial Chrome Web browser beta for Mac will be App Mode, bookmark manager, multitouch support, 64-bit compatibility, browser extensions, and Google Gears. It leaves me to wonder what is left that would be worth beta testing.

Google Gears is one of the more compelling components of the Chrome browser. It lets you work with other Google products like Gmail and Google Docs even while offline. App Mode lets developers create standalone Web browsers customized for a single site.

The good news is that these features aren't being nixed forever. They're just not going to be a part of the initial beta. Google still plans to incorporate them into future updates leading, eventually, to taking the Mac version of Chrome out of beta.

With over a year competing against browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox, and Safari, Google's Chrome has managed to scratch out 3.6 percent of the Web browser market. Google has a goal to reach 5 percent market share by September of 2010, and 10 percent by 2011.

Both of those goal milestones seem reasonable, if not conservative. If Google releases Mac OS X and Linux-compatible versions of the Web browser--with all of the features enabled--it will offer a solid alternative for Firefox and Safari on platforms where Internet Explorer doesn't even compete. That should grab a few market share percentage points.

All versions of Mac OS X and Linux combined make up less than 10 percent of the operating system market, while Windows dominates with more than 90 percent. Internet Explorer is a formidable opponent as a Windows-based Web browser, but Google still has much more to gain by chipping away at Internet Explorer and competing for the Windows audience.

With Google positioned as a sort of anti-Microsoft, it seems odd that Chrome was released for Windows first and that more Google-friendly platforms like the Mac have had to wait for over a year. That is, until you consider the market.

Unless you're Apple, there is little incentive in catering to Mac OS X. But, with all that Google is developing and bringing to the table, including the Chrome operating system, it seems fair to assume that the Chrome Web browser will continue to gain market share--although more likely at the expense of Firefox and Safari than Internet Explorer.

Keep your eyes open, though, Mac OS X users. Google just has a few more bugs to eliminate before the feature-stripped beta of the Chrome Web browser will be available for download.

source : itnews.com

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Microsoft offers Twitter-style service in China

MSN Juku lets users post 140-character messages on a scrolling timeline

Microsoft has launched a microblog-style service in China based on Windows Live Messenger, expanding the social-networking functions linked to the chat software in a country where it is a hit.

The new service, which is called MSN Juku and is now in beta, lets users post 140-character messages to an update screen that slowly scrolls old messages to the right. The service automatically links users with people on their Live Messenger contact lists, whose updates also appear on the scrolling timeline. Posts are also stacked top-to-bottom and display only their first few words when they appear close together. Pointing the mouse at a condensed message shows its full version.

MSN China, the Microsoft joint venture that developed the new product, insisted it is not a microblog service. "Juku is a local innovation developed by MSN China ... based on Windows Live Messenger networks," a company representative said in an e-mail.

But Juku, whose name uses the Chinese characters for "gathering" and "cool", is similar enough to a microblog site that one local media report called it a "bandit" version of Plurk, a Twitter-like service popular in Asia. The Chinese term for "bandit" is slang for a product similar to that of an established brand and is most often used to describe knock-off mobile phones.

The new MSN service also lets users play simple games and earn prizes such as new face icons to post in messages. Users can upload a profile picture, visit the pages of other users and add them as friends.

Many Twitter-style services have appeared in China in recent months as social-networking sites grow increasingly popular. About 124 million people, or one in three of China's Internet users, currently use social-networking sites, according to the country's domain registry agency. Microblogging in particular is also growing, though Twitter and some of its Chinese rivals have been blocked by the country's Internet authorities for months. Half of China's social-network users post microblog entries online at least once a day, according to the domain registry, though that figure likely includes messages similar to the status updates that can be sent on Facebook.

The new MSN service is likely an effort by Microsoft to win more users for its social-networking products as well as its instant-messaging service, said Ashley Liu, an analyst at In-Stat. Windows Live Messenger is popular in China, especially among office workers, but rival instant-messaging program QQ is also widely used and has gotten a boost from value-added services built around it, Liu said. Tencent, the owner of QQ, has had major success selling users upgrades to their accounts and virtual goods such as weapons for online games.

Users appear unable to buy virtual goods on the new MSN service. For now Microsoft may be foraying into social networking just to lower its dependence on its instant-messaging program in China, Liu said.

source : itnews.com

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Windows 7 steals biggest chunk of share from XP

Record declines in XP, Vista offset by Windows 7 growth

Microsoft's Windows ran to stay in place last month as Window 7's market share gains made up for the largest-ever declines in Windows XP and Vista, data released today by Web metrics firm Net Applications showed.

By Net Applications' numbers, Windows 7's gains were primarily at the expense of Windows XP. For each copy of Vista replaced by Windows 7 during November, more than six copies of XP were swapped for the new OS.

Meanwhile, Apple's Mac OS X lost share during November.

But it was Microsoft's ability to retain its share in the face of record slumps in its older editions that was the news from Net Applications. Even though Windows XP lost 1.45 percentage points to end November with a 69% share, and Vista fell 0.2 percentage points to 18.6%, Windows kept its total operating system share at 92.5%, the same as in October.

The declines in XP and Vista were both records in Net Applications' tallies, which because of a change in methodology instituted last July go back only two years. For Vista, November marked the second time in three months that the often-maligned operating system lost share. That trend, if accurate, means that the 2007 operating system has peaked, and will now, like XP before it, begin a slow, inexorable decline as it is replaced by Windows 7.

Give Windows 7 all the credit for holding Microsoft's line. In the first full month after its Oct. 22 public launch, Microsoft's newest operating system increased its share by 1.8 percentage points, ending November with 4%, more than enough to make up for the losses by XP and Vista.

Windows 7 has been on a share roll since it debuted, according to Net Applications. Less than three weeks after its release, Windows 7 had acquired a slice of the OS pie that it took Vista five months to reach.

Neither XP nor Vista will vanish overnight if Net Applications' data is any indicator. Currently, about three of every four Windows PCs runs XP, while one-in-five runs Vista. Only about one in every 23 Windows systems is powered by Windows 7.

Almost as unusual as Windows remaining in place was the Mac OS X's dip. By Net Applications' estimate, Apple's operating system finished November with 5.1%, a decline of 0.16 percentage points, the largest since February 2009 and only the third negative number this year. Most months, Mac OS X gains ground on Microsoft, albeit by small margins: Over the last 12 months, Apple's OS has increased its share by an average of less than 0.1 percentage points.

Linux, on the other hand, came up a winner last month, returning to the 1% share mark for the first time since July. Linux's all-time high in Net Applications' rankings was May 2009, when it nearly reached 1.2%.

Net Applications measures operating system usage by tracking the machines that surf to the 40,000 sites it monitors for clients, which results in a pool of about 160 million unique visitors each month. It then weights share by the estimated size of each country's Internet population.

November's operating system data can be found on Net Applications' site.

source : itnews.com

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