Almost all of us know that Chrome is the most popular browser in the world. From release in 2008little by little it has been conquering users from all over the world, both in desktop computers and mobile devices. What not all of us knew was that the project was born behind the back of the CEO of the company at the time.
Eric Schmidt, who had become CEO of the search giant in 2001, was strongly opposed to entering the browser market. The executive maintained that it did not make sense to allocate resources to try to compete in a scenario dominated by major players such as Internet Explorer and Mozilla.
The fear of losing to Microsoft
Details about the origin of the browser were given by Schmidt himself at a conference at Stanford University. according to his storyLarry Page and Sergey Brin, the founders of Google, they wanted to create an operating system and a browser. Although there are no time references, everything seems to indicate that that episode dates back to before 2004.
But the response from Google’s new big boss had been blunt: “We are not strong enough to take on Microsoft.” Schmidt argued that while they were a company with many talented people and good revenue, they were still a small player in the giant tech industry, potential prey for the Redmonds.
“They [Microsoft] they can kill us They have killed me before in previous projects ”, he maintained agreed. His plan seemed to have worked. Instead of focusing on developing a new browser, Google focused on improve the experience of your products in Firefoxwhich little by little had begun to gain ground on Internet Explorer.
How Chrome was “invented” @ericschmidt ‘s fun BTS. pic.twitter.com/N2fCylQ38f
— Vijay Shekhar Sharma (@vijayshekhar) May 23, 2021
Months passed, exactly six months after that conversation, and Schmidt met with the person in charge of improving Firefox performance and she confessed that she had created a new browser. The developer initially tried to de-escalate the tension, saying that he had only been working part of his time on the project.
Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin, and Larry Page.
However, it took only a few minutes for Schmidt to discover that not only had he spent all of his time at the company for months developing the browser, but I had a team of 10 more people. “Did Larry and Sergey know about this?” Schmid asked the chief navigator. The answer was affirmative.
According to an official publication, Google officially started working on Chrome in 2006. A key person in the development of the project was the company’s product manager and current CEO, Sundar Pichai. The first version of the browser ran on Windows XP and was released in 2008.
Today, after 15 years, Chrome seems to have no rival. It holds 64.3% of the global browser market share, that is, it is the most used by far. Next comes Apple’s Safari (19.17) and Microsoft’s Edge (4.07). Statista data They place Firefox, the former king, in fourth place, with 3.63% of the market.
Images: Google | charles haynes | joi ito
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