We're a web company. We should own a critical technology for getting on the web. Better experience surfing means more traffic for Google. But also, if we own the browser, we can push Google services and make them better and more convenient. We can also influence web standards to our favor. And a nice side-effect is we can better track users.
So--one part we're an ad company and one part MS-style "embrace and extend" the web.
To not allow Microsoft IE to dictate web standards? To gather more search queries? Chrome beta released 15 years ago, that's such a long con I'm not sure I buy it.
When Chrome came out, Microsoft was in no position to dictate anything web-related; they barely managed to get IE7 released and it was playing massive catchup to Firefox (and Opera) in regards to standards, and didn't really bring any new web features that weren't already in other browsers.
MS really dropped the ball after IE6. Notably in Europe Firefox actually temporarily surpassed IE in market share, before Google came and stomped everyone.
Maybe you were not using IE at that time, but surely you had to create IE compatible content if you worked as a web developer, and this was really hell. If window.forms, if ie6 if opera, if ns6 - ifing hell there was I tell you!
> Microsoft was in no position to dictate anything web-related; they barely managed to get IE7 released
I recall a blog from that time titled Chrome is the new IE6.
On the corporate side, we paid attention when an SAAS site had a "Built For Internet Explorer" badge. Elements can+did falter in other browsers (because devs only dev'd for IE).
