The announcement this week that Google is launching its own browser, Chrome, could be a major obstacle for a company like Brand Thunder that is building its business on building custom browser themes – and primarily for Firefox. This is just the nature of business – the landscape changes. Each change will present some measure of opportunity and threat, but the share of each remains unknown. Are you prepared?

Our position is this creates greater opportunity for Brand Thunder. It generates more awareness in the market of alternatives to IE (still roughly 75% market share). There are already other alternatives besides Firefox. Users have Safari, Opera, Sea Monkey, Konqueror and others available to them. But Google has considerable clout and may be able to make the mainstream user more aware of their options. And, we’re betting that effort will help level the playing field meaning greater market share for all non-IE browsers.

Chrome is also open-source. Theoretically, that gives us the ability to create the same kind of immersive experience we do today with Firefox. Though, the ability to extend functionality is not built into Chrome today – so how functionally cool you can make it remains to be seen.

A bit of early reassurance was found in a TechCrunch posting which showed a reduction in IE visitors to their site and growth to both Chrome and Firefox percentages. It reinforces our immediate assumption.

In the long-run, it won’t matter. We’ll be where the users are, and where the capabilities exist. Today, that’s Firefox. Tomorrow it could be Chrome or something different altogether. We’re browser agnostic, and experience focused – connecting brands to their consumers in a landscape that’s sure to change.

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