Google Chrome: shiny, new, mysterious ... and did I mention mysterious

As is customary when a brand-new product makes its debut with great fanfare, developing an opinion about what it means now and for the future is at turns extremely easy and all but impossible.

And yes, I do have an article about my first impressions of the Google Chrome browser coming out in Wednesday's Daily News. I also have a long entry here outlining my initial opinion of the app and what it means to Google, the industry and the world in general.

On one level, it's just a Web browser. We've got tons of them.

But on another level, it's a Web browser. The most-used computer application on the planet, and Google's now making one.

Chrome has the potential to give Google unprecendented control over how its advertising and Web-based applications are delivered and used.

Is that a good thing?

Applications and the data that go with them are moving to the cloud — to servers out there somewhere, managed by giants like Amazon, IBM and Google — and the way we interact with those applications is, by and large, the Web browser.

It doesn't have to be that way. An e-mail client isn't a Web browser. Nor is an IM client. But we use Web browsers a lot. If there was ever a Swiss Army knife of applications, it went from being an office suite to a Web browser long ago.

Under it all, Google Chrome is meant to be a pipeline for data, a framework for applications, and most importantly, a way to reimagine the browser with all-new, non-legacy code.

So why does it look so much like ... a Web browser?

Can't answer that one. But if the under-the-hood innovation promised by Google — features to quash malware and phishing, an emphasis on multiple threads, closer integration with other Web-fed applications like Google Docs and Gears ... if all this proves compelling in some way, and if pure speed comes along with it, Google can win this war.

And if rumors are true, part of that war might involve the purchase of Mozilla.

Others, including Matt Asay of Cnet (and Alfresco), think that Mozilla's superior leverage in the community — of users and open-source developers vs. Google's paltry showing in this area means that Mozilla won't fold so easily.

And Mozilla has plenty of ideas of its own about where users interaction with the Internet and the desktop are going.

Notice how I didn't mention Microsoft? I don't see MS out-innovating anyone. It follows, and does so brilliantly and profitably, but it does not lead when it comes to technological innovation.

But as great as Mozilla's community might be, a concerted effort to develop the Chrome browser and any other technology that comes out of it really cannot be matched.

And if in some way Chrome manages to bring in more green for Google, I can see many, many resources, indeed, being heaped upon this latest venture.