• Money… I’m listing this as the first reason because money talks (as they say). Google was essentially giving away the delivery mechanism to a revenue stream that it can tap itself back into. For those of you that don’t know, here’s an example. FireFox makes money every time you search and click one of the ad links in the results. Google can keep more of that money for itself if you use their browser.
• Delivery… Google has many great online products and services, but they do not control the way in which you access these things. What would happen if all of a sudden Microsoft, Apple and/or Mozilla decided they no longer wanted to play nice with Google? How would you get to their online products and services. If I am a shareholder (I’m not), I would be very afraid of this possibility (albeit remote). Hey, you never know. Strange things have happened… No one ever thought Apple was going to survive just a few years ago, but check them out now!

Final Words… I find it a bit interesting that Google is using WebKit as the engine for their browser just as Apple is for their Safari browser. Pretty darn cool! Also, I don’t think my two reasons listed above are the only reasons for the Google browser, but I do think they may have been near the top of the list. Lastly, would argue the most significant functionality of the application at this point is that you can save a page as an application. I know I’ll be creating a few “applications” for things like gmail and Google Calendar!