I've been seeing a number of "day after" articles on Google's new Chrome web browser suggesting it is largely irrelevant and that the release is considerably overblown in terms of any real or potential effects on the market. Typical of these is this observation from Hank Williams of Kloudshare, who points out that people are getting excited about a new beta-test browser while ancient, venerable Internet Explorer 6, seven years old now, still has 25% of the global browser market. This being the case, says Williams, "...Chrome, from a business perspective, for the foreseeable future, is totally irrelevant."

His point, and it's not a bad one, is that consumer internet developers have to focus their development time on supporting the larger part of their available market. If Internet Explorer dominates the market, then it doesn't matter what Chromes capabilities are, everyone will be constrained by what IE can do. Of course, developers are as much to blame for this as anyone; if popular internet sites stopped developing for IE6 and started requiring newer browsers, you'd see that market share decline... it's no longer difficult to upgrade your browser and if people can keep their Flash version updated so they can catch the latest funny video on YouTube they can surely bump up to Firefox or IE 7.

But although I think he does have a point, I think that it's a rather narrow one from a "business perspective." I think it's applicable to the consumer internet market, certainly. But for businesses, it's a non-issue. There are many web-based business applications which require specific browsers now, and businesses have the ability to (contrary to Larry Dignan's assertions yesterday) and can standardize on whatever browser they want. And if Chrome provides real advantage to running web-based business applications, then businesses will either move to adopt it or demand similar features in their standard browser. It's fairly clear that SaaS can be a flexible, cost-effective solution for many businesses, and if the trend toward adopting SaaS solutions continues, enterprise infrastructure will start being tailored to supporting those. For years we have been buying faster computers with more RAM to accommodate the burgeoning requirements of Microsoft Office and other heavy-duty client-centric applications; suggesting that Chrome, or its ilk, will be disregarded in business is similar to suggesting that faster processors and more storage and larger monitors were disregarded when they became available. Anything that offers an advantage is going to have an effect in the business market, and something as easy to implement as Chrome will have an effect much more quickly than something expensive and complex like hardware. The only real question will be whether or not Chrome will in fact deliver on its promises to improve the web-based application experience.