Sony May Shake Up Browser Market With Chrome Prebundle

Google Chrome would be prebundled on the Sony Vaio PC

Google Chrome was launched on Sept. 2, 2008, and just one year later it was revealed that Sony would become the first computer manufacturer to bundle the Chrome Web browser on its hardware. The move by Sony marks the first computer manufacturer to preload a browser other than Internet Explorer on a Windows-based PC.

In the highly competitive Web browser market, every contender is currently looking up at Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Mozilla's popular open-source Web browser, Firefox, has long been working to gain traction in the market while relative newcomer Safari from Apple is still looking to claw out its own market share.

Chrome is by far the newest entrant to the contest but has already scored a win that neither Firefox nor alternate browsers like Opera can claim: being bundled with a PC. Granted, the Sony Vaios in question will still have Internet Explorer preloaded, but the fact that Chrome will be an out-of-the-box option is a win for Google.

But it is doubtful that getting Chrome on to the Sony Viao will make big ripples in Web browser market-share numbers. A July report from Stat Counter shows that Internet Explorer continues to lead the way with 60 percent global market share. Firefox comes in second at 30.7 percent. Meanwhile, Google's Chrome has a 2.87 percent share globally.

The run of Sony Vaio PCs is unlikely to sell as many notebooks as a competing notebook from a company like Hewlett-Packard, Dell or Acer. So even though Chrome is prebundled on the Sony hardware, it is unlikely that there will be a major spike in Google's Web browser market share.

However, that doesn't mean that the move is insignificant in the browser industry. Chrome's victory is unprecedented in a Window-based OS and could be the first step in the evolution of the marketplace that could ultimately end with Web browser makers duking it out for preferred placement in software bundles.

Of course, for that to happen another browser would have to follow in the footsteps that Google Chrome just blazed.