Chrome-plated CRM on the way with new Google browser

The arrival of Google's Chrome web browser has had a big impact - not least in the CRM space where NetSuite has already announced support for it. Will Chrome mount a serious challenge to Microsoft and are more CRM players preparing to add support?

By Stuart Lauchlan, news and analysis editor

NetSuite is the first CRM firm to boast that its offering will work with Google's new Chrome browser. But if analysts are correct about the market impact of the new Google tool, the others won't be far behind!

NetSuite was the first with native support for the iPhone's version of Safari and the new Firefox 3.0. The company said that Google Chrome, which is optimised for Web 2.0, enhances the performance speed for AJAX-powered features of NetSuite, including eXtreme list editing, type-ahead lookups, rich text editing, drag-and-drop and quick-add portlets, while OpenAir experiences similar performance gains for dynamic workflows, such as assigning project resources and managing project tasks.

NetSuite support for Google Chrome is being rolled out now in phases to customers. Once the rollout is complete in mid-October 2008, all NetSuite and OpenAir functionality will work with Google Chrome's current release, the company said.

Chrome was announced last week and immediately took 1% market share in the web browser space. It's an obvious challenge to Microsoft, as Google attempts to expanding from search and integrating an already diversified lineup of web-based applications into the browser as a platform.


“Chrome challenges not just Microsoft's IE browser (especially in the mobile browser space - on the desktop space it simply makes the forthcoming IE version 8 look much less inspiring) but also its Windows desktop, by supporting richer web applications less dependent on standard OSs,” noted Ovum's Laurent Lachal.

“Chrome is much less of a challenge to Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser. Its release comes a few days after Google renewed its partnership deal with the foundation, effectively funding it for another three years until November 2011. Mozilla's main challenge - to grow independent from Google's funding - remains unchanged. The foundation now has more time to get its act together in a market that, owing to Chrome, could become not just more competitive but also more open source browser friendly.

"Eventually Chrome and Firefox could converge, but at the moment two strong players - Chrome with Google's mindshare as well as marketing and financial muscle, and Firefox with its market share lead and ecosystem - have more chance against Microsoft than one.”

An audacious move

Other analysts had a similar message. “We don’t expect Google Chrome to take significant browser share anytime soon, but it does turn the heat up on Microsoft, Firefox and Apple, possibly causing them to re-architect their browsers for today’s more sophisticated internet applications, like Google Apps,” noted AMR Research's Jonathan Yarmis. “It spurs Microsoft, and Microsoft has always done best when challenged. Mozilla Firefox was a nuisance, but Google Chrome is a contender. Google’s entry will encourage a long-overdue period of browser innovation that will ultimately benefit users, though it may disrupt a few enterprises along the way.

“Google is making an audacious move here, trying to supplant Microsoft as the dominant platform provider and relegating Apple once again to niche platform status. As with all platform battles, don’t get caught up too deeply in the relative merits of the platform itself, which is rarely a trump card. Platform battles are won and lost through application developer support, and thus the battle for the developers of desktop and mobile applications just got more interesting.

“Google has an advantage here. Much as Microsoft was able to drive the value of Windows through the lens of Microsoft Office, so too will Google drive the value of Chrome through the lens of Google Apps. There’s always a chicken-and-egg issue with new platforms. You don’t get volume until there are a rich array of applications, and you don’t get a rich array of applications until there’s volume. Google has a sufficient breadth of applications available and conceivably in the pipeline that it can use to single-handedly resolve the conundrum.”

Universal support for web-based applications is critical to the success or otherwise of this gambit, reckons Yarmis. “For Chrome to work with virtually all existing web-based applications, which represent an increasingly large component of a user’s application portfolio, is critical,” he said. “Previous attempts to supplant Microsoft had to embrace a broad range of developers and applications. Today, almost all application developers have embraced a standard web platform with which Chrome will be largely compatible very quickly. Thus, it is perhaps only essential that Google displace Microsoft Office. While a formidable task, the barrier to displacing Microsoft has never been lower."

Changing development philosophies?

Other sofware as a service (SaaS) vendors will inevitably follow NetSuite's lead – the most obvious candidate clearly being Salesforce.com which already has close links with Google. “Salesforce.com, which is already partnering with Google to move Google Apps into the enterprise, is certainly evaluating how else it can exploit Chrome and Google Apps to expand the impact and value of its products,” said Yarmis. “We said that content management and business intelligence represent new opportunities for Google. Those application providers would be well-served to expand their capabilities (and protect their flanks).

“Freeing themselves from the dictates of a Microsoft operating environment lets enterprise application providers innovate on the front-end of their applications. Of course, their track record of interface development is not exactly stellar. Unless they change their development philosophies, this may actually be a third-party opportunity.”

Salesforce.com chose the release of Firefox version 3.0 to outline some of its plans for browser support, which include weaning its installed base off of Internet Explorer 6.0. “As time goes by and more of our users upgrade to IE7 or switch to other browsers like Firefox and Safari, we move closer to the day when we will drop official support for IE6,” said Jerry Sherman, senior director of development services at Salesforce.com in his blog.

“Another factor to consider is that Microsoft has already released a beta version of Internet Explorer 8, with a generally available release some time in the next few months. Given all of this, we at Salesforce.com have been contemplating how we can move away from IE6 support."

But he was quick to resassure users that they would not be abandoned. “Rest assured, we are not planning to de-support IE6 any time soon. IE6 is still far too heavily used by our customer base, and upgrading to IE7 or switching to another browser is too much to ask in the short-term,” he said, but added: “Our current thinking is that our next-generation UI enhancements, to be released starting later this year, will not be supported on IE6. This does not mean you could not use IE6 with Salesforce. However, it would mean that you would not have access to UI enhancements unless you upgraded to IE7 or switched to another supported browser like Firefox or Safari.”

As for support for Firefox 3.0, he said: “We usually target official support for major browser releases within 90 days of the initial release. Overall, we rarely see critical issues with Firefox, even from one major release to another.”

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