Google reaching beyond search
2008-05-29 14:07
San Francisco - Google unveiled tools designed to beef up the power of the web browser as a development platform and encourage developers away from client/server desktop applications.
The initiatives, which come as Google is increasingly trying to extend itself beyond its core internet search market, are designed to help developers create larger and more complex applications, traditionally the preserve of desktop applications, that can run on a web browser.
Google is trying to persuade developers that more and more applications will be developed and stored on the web, as opposed to the client/server market, which is dominated by Microsoft.
Alongside companies including Amazon.com and Salesforce.com, it is touting applications that can be distributed and stored over the internet on "data centres" hosted off the premises, minimising the need for constant physical software upgrades and increasingly heavy hardware requirements.
At a developer conference on Wednesday in San Francisco, Google -which gets the lion's share of its revenue from internet search advertising - touted the new development capabilities for its App Engine, a tool which allows developers to run applications on Google's huge server infrastructure.
Google is increasingly reaching out to the developer community to build a user base for products that extend beyond search, said Vic Gundotra, vice president of engineering, mobile and developer divisions.
This means that alongside allowing developers to create applications which can be hosted by Google, it wants to make the web browser itself more powerful.
'The web has won'
"We want to accelerate the capability of the browser," Gundotra said.
He added, "The web is maturing at an amazing rate, and it's getting better and better. I don't think there's any question that in terms of the question of "What has become the dominant development platform?" The web has won."
Gundotra said Google's short-term goal wasn't to drive revenue from developer programs, but to increase the size of the internet and to drive incremental revenue from this.
"We think (these initiatives) drive opportunities to build better applications which will actually benefit our advertising business," he said.
Google unveiled prices for AppEngine that are designed to enable developers to create larger and more robust applications. The company also lifted earlier memory size restrictions.
It showcased the use of Gears, a set of tools that enable databases to be accessed via a web browser, on MySpace, the social networking website owned by News Corp.
Executives also showcased some of the applications on Google's yet to launch Android mobile phone software, including a touch-screen interface and a so-called "street view" application that allows users to look at real-time views of their location.