> Is Google leveraging the popularity of maps.google.com to also marginalize rockmelt? If Google did prevent a browser like rockmelt, which is not a strategic

> Is Google leveraging the popularity of maps.google.com to also marginalize rockmelt? If Google did prevent a browser like rockmelt, which is not a strategic threat to Google, from accessing maps, I would say that likely it is a side effect of something else. But Microsoft IS in fact a strategic threat to Google, and Google constantly thinks about how to compete effectively against it. To do otherwise would be stupid, which Google is not. > it ignores the very simple fact that any organization is made up of people with very different opinions Of course Google is a very large company, and has many people inside it with many different opinions (and as you say, many are great people that truly care about the open web). But like any corporation, it is hierarchical and its leaders at the top do define an overall coherent strategy for the company as a whole. A company that does not do that is doomed to failure, and there are of course plenty of examples in history. Google's overall strategy with respect to the web has shifted in recent years, with less support for alternative browsers on desktop and especially mobile. This makes business sense for Google - supporting other browsers in some cases might help them compete against Google, which like any company Google wants to prevent. This is not unique to Google; what is, is that years ago Google was very different - it didn't have it's own browser and OS, and it supported openness on the web, that openness helped Google as a new company making money on the web. But that openness is no longer crucial to Google's strategy, and that is affecting Google's products more and more.