Just recently Google launched their new +1 initiative. I call it an initiative deliberately. Google, in my opinion is amongst the most innovative and dynamic companies operating in software today. Amongst their recent output:

• Wave, an ultimately doomed project that gambled on not specifying a single use. This free, collaborative tool would have surely never made it off a drawing board inside Microsoft HQ.
• Chrome, the most innovative, fast and fun web browser around today. It’s as pleasurable to use as it is to see it’s market share increase, albeit steadily.
• +1. OK so it’s largely for their benefit but does it really warrant the outburst which I overhead in my office?

Paraphrased, the argument was that Google was overstepping the mark by sheer dominance, that they had a monopoly on information itself, that the creep from search engine to onsite tool was overstepping the line. We must remember that Google basically runs a large chunk of our business, through search and now with its own browser and other software (let’s not forget the Operating System also), but we have to give it the freedom to fail. By permanently fixating such pessimism on a company that revolutionised much of the web for the better were really missing out on the pace and spirit of our platform.

Google are dropping support for our bug bear, Internet Explorer 6. Microsoft will wait another three years to follow suit, therefore giving us five versions of clumsy browsers to support. Admittedly version 9 is light-years ahead of its predecessors but Google gave Microsoft the fright of its life by producing a browser, on it’s first attempt, that was lightweight, had fantastic developer tools, and innovated the paradigm of the web browser.

If the modern web company were a film, Google would be Inception and Microsoft would be straight to DVD.