GBrowser … a myth!

Rumor: A WebKit-based GBrowser?

In the post The Google Browser from earlier this year, someone going
by the name “the Lizard” says that Google is developing its own,
WebKit-based browser. Lizard argues that it is strategically dangerous
to bet too much on just Firefox, which sends a lot of paid search
traffic to Google, and that this made Google start an internal project
in mid-2006 titled “GBrowser.”

According to the Lizard, GBrowser is built on top of the open source
WebKit browser framework, which was also used by Apple to create
Safari, and is also used for the browser of Google-initiated mobile
platform Android. “More than that,” the Lizard writes, GBrowser “will
offer integration with many Google services, such as Gmail, Google
Calendar, Blogger, and likely Google Talk.” Lizard continues:

“Rumblings of a Google browser have been carpeting the web for years,
but it wasn’t until 2006 that an entire team was actually committed to
working on what will become GBrowser.

Google, always known for iterating slowly on most of its projects, has
taken its time on GBrowser for a very good reason: it only has one
chance to get it right. Failing to succeed in its browser move means
rocky negotiations with a core partner, Mozilla, and could negatively
impact its financials in a significant manner. A move into the browser
market requires perfection, and GBrowser has undergone at least one
substantial rewrite and many major user-interface iterations.”

Lizard adds, “Mozilla knows GBrowser is coming and discusses it at
length internally.” And then, I heard another rumor that Google will
be creating a standard which allows the toolbar of GBrowser to change
when visiting certain sites – say, when you visit Google Docs you get
a special Docs toolbar. Now, I don’t know if there’s indeed such a
browser in the works, and have to file all of this under rumor until
further details are known… but thought it’s an interesting rumor
nevertheless. Once in May 2006, when Google CEO Eric Schmidt was asked
in a Q&A whether Google would consider building their own browser, he
replied “We would only do so…if we thought there was a real user
benefit.”

The original article can be found here: http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-06-10-n87.html

Google and Salesforce integrating more services

Google and Salesforce can’t seem to get enough of each other: over a series of announcements the companies have aligned their product strategies more and more closely over time. Now the companies are planning something new together, to be announced by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and Google VP Engineering Vic Gundotra at Salesforce’s upcoming Tour de Force developer event on June 23 in Santa Clara.

A year ago Salesforce integrated adwords tracking into their platform. Then two months ago we heard rumors that the companies were planning on deeper product integration – it turned out to be the complete integration of Google Apps (Docs, Calendar, Gmail, and Gtalk) and Salesforce?s online enterprise apps.

With the most recent announcement Google in effect became Salesforce’s productivity suite. Google documents, spreadsheets, and presentation can be created from within Salesforce?s CRM application. GTalk works as the de facto instant messenger within Salesforce. With one click, sales people who use Gmail can send any email correspondence with potential or existing customers to Salesforce, where it becomes recorded as part of the sales cycle. Sales events and marketing campaigns can be overlayed onto a Google Calendar, as well as colleague?s schedules for figuring out convenient meeting times.

So what will the two companies announce later this month? Gundotra, who keynoted the recent Google I/O conference, is responsible for developer evangelism and open source programs at Google. That includes things like Android, Gears and Open Social. Connecting the dots isn’t too hard.