It is no secret that over the last two years, Google Chrome has been stealing significant market share from competition, both from Firefox and Internet Explorer. Over the last 2 years, Google Chrome has reached 20% market share.
Why is that? First, and foremost, Google Chrome is a good browser: it is simple and fast and offers most of the functionalities proposed by competition. On top of that, Google marketing machine has been pushing very hard this product over the last 2 years, for instance:
- In 2010, they had a major advertising campaign in the French market with TV advertising, billboards in the metro, banners on major websites …
- On Google search homepage, the advertising to download is constantly present (if you are using a different browser).
Looking at the details with our team, we noticed that one of the most striking features of Chrome is its release cycle. Google releases one major version every other month when Microsoft releases a major version of Internet Explorer every other year. The following graph maps this phenomenon quite well. At the time of its release, internet explorer is roughly at par with chrome in term of performance (here load time to keep it simple), except chrome will then release 2 or 3 major versions in the following 6 months creating a new performance gap. Beyond the capabilities at a given time, the real differentiation of Chrome is the way the development is managed more than an absolute level of performance. In the end the learning is faster and the quality perceived by the consumer is better. Interestingly, Microsoft has mostly stuck to its old ways of doing things releasing a version every two years. This way of working is an asset when working with enterprises as they don't want constant upgrades but not so much when you're addressing the consumer markets. Once again Microsoft is on the enterprise side of the business whereas Google has a consumer side to it.
We believe that this applies to many software products, especially targeted at consumers. Fast release cycle end up creating a better product and a real advantage on the market place.
What do you think?
Frederic HALLEY
