"Download Chrome so that Microsoft can't block the Google Toolbar" isn't a selling point for consumers. I don't doubt that it factors into the strategic story o

"Download Chrome so that Microsoft can't block the Google Toolbar" isn't a selling point for consumers. I don't doubt that it factors into the strategic story of why the company invested in and supported the browser, but in addition, office productivity tools like GMail and the Apps suite rely on local storage, offline mode, and RPC technologies that the three big browsers weren't guaranteed to prioritize supporting in 2008. To ensure it could build the apps it wanted to build, Google needed a web user-agent it could control. Chrome was built and launched as much to enable those apps as it was to keep Google current as a default search target.