With the launch of Google’s new browser, Chrome, this may be a signal that some radical change is going to happen not just with technology, but possibly the first true signal of a threat to Microsoft and other Enterprise class software companies. Could this be so?

Web designers and developers will be heaving another sigh of frustration - yet another browser to take into consideration for testing and building. Their voices however, will be lost in the maelstrom about to unfold in the coming months as the battlefield changes. Chrome is simply the next move in what analysts have predicted for a while; that Google truly represents a threat to Microsoft. By this, we mean not just Microsoft, but desktop and Enterprise computing as a whole. Why?

In the PC world Mac kept their system closed, Windows opened theirs up. IBM adopted Linux and Open Source early on. It has no doubt made a difference in their revenues and operating model. This was all in a closed network-centric world. By 2000 we knew the players and the market was pretty much set; Microsoft held sway in the desktop world and every software company wanted an icon on the desktop.

Fast-forward to 2008 and the Web has evolved to a significant place with the evolution of the Cloud. We are on the cusp of the next evolution of the IT world. In some ways we’re going back to the old thin client days of the late 70’s and early 80’s and in other ways we’re adding aspects such as mobile computing on a scale and in ways never before seen.

The Web has reached a “Tipping Point” with adoption by consumers, business and government. As the Cloud becomes increasingly viable, more companies will turn to it rather than incur the costs of hardware, software licensing and development infrastructure. A browser then becomes a vital component of this new dynamic. This is what Google understands. Microsoft with Sharepoint is aiming to secure IE as the browser to work in this type of environment - but the killer is that IE will be built to work on what will inevitably be Microsoft version of the Cloud. This brings Microsoft into an Apple-like environment; a closed loop system. Google sees the world as open.

Chrome, Android, Google Sites, Blogger…all add up to a suite of services and applications that leverage the Cloud, all have API’s for development by third parties. Chrome is brilliantly designed to take advantage of the Cloud-oriented world. This could be a threat to Microsoft as companies look to reduce IT infrastructure costs and place the emphasis on better, faster applications.