4 ms·

I may not be very knowledgeable in this area, but my first instinct is I don't very much like the kind of infrastructure that needs to peek into my HTTP headers

I may not be very knowledgeable in this area, but my first instinct is I don't very much like the kind of infrastructure that needs to peek into my HTTP headers. Anyways, google is in a unique position with this kind of changes. It has a >1% browser, and a hefty slice of web servers (only google and youtube and it adds up to something impressive). So this kind of protocol is worth pushing only to give chrome users on google sites an edge. The rest of the sites/browsers have a good chance of following, but they're not essential to declare the protocol a success.

jacquesm 17y ago
That's pretty close to 'embrace and extend'.
- teilo 17y ago
  No, it's not. Embrace and extend is designed to take over a market entirely and push out the competition. Example: ActiveX only works in IE, and the code is closed so no one else can implement it. Here is what Google seems to be doing: Inventing a new, more efficient HTTP, supporting it on their servers and browsers, and opening the spec to anyone who chooses to implement it, while, at the same time, continuing to support the venerable HTTP protocol in all its apps, with no loss in functionality. Apache, Firefox, Safari, and [gasp] IE could freely implement SPDY at any time, or not. In this manner the market gets to determine which protocol should succeed, and it determines it in a way that does not harm the consumer or limit his choices. Show me another company with the ability or the will to do something this comprehensively helpful.
easp 17y ago
I think the strategy google is pursuing with Chrome, ChromeOS, SPDY and even google docs is to make web-centric computing more widespread, both among the established base of existing desktop and laptop users, and among non-users like people in developing countries, and people who aren't doing mobile computing yet. Google benefits both because they are well positioned to monetize this type of computing, through both advertising, and fees for services like Google Apps; and because this kind of computing devalues the cash cows of their largest rival. The tactics they are using are to drive down costs (ie give Google Apps away to small businesses, and make it a lot cheaper than running exchange, deploying office, etc, for larger orgs), and to enhance the overall experience (ie make web apps faster via SPDY, fast javascript, etc). Against this background, projects like Chrome don't have to achieve market dominance to be successful, they just have to achieve broad influence. I don't think just delivering better performance when Chrome users visit Google's properties counts as success, though; I think they need to get other browsers and services to change too. I think SPDY is most likely to take off on mobile devices first. First, latency is a much bigger issue for cellular data than it is for WiFi, etc. Second, it looks like Google is going to get decent browser share on mobile devices. If Google implements SPDY in the Android browser, then makers of mobile web apps will likely embrace it. If that happens, then Apple, etc will feel the need to support it as well, lest the iPhone end up at a big disadvantage.
- radu_floricica 17y ago
  > Against this background, projects like Chrome don't have to achieve market dominance to be successful, they just have to achieve broad influence. Good point. After all, GMail's most immediate and important result was that every other mail provider dramatically increased their storage space. At the time yahoo offered only 4 mb for free - in a matter of weeks it jumped almost thousand-fold. Same with Chrome and javascript speed in Firefox.

jacquesm 17y ago

That's pretty close to 'embrace and extend'.

teilo 17y ago
No, it's not. Embrace and extend is designed to take over a market entirely and push out the competition. Example: ActiveX only works in IE, and the code is closed so no one else can implement it. Here is what Google seems to be doing: Inventing a new, more efficient HTTP, supporting it on their servers and browsers, and opening the spec to anyone who chooses to implement it, while, at the same time, continuing to support the venerable HTTP protocol in all its apps, with no loss in functionality. Apache, Firefox, Safari, and [gasp] IE could freely implement SPDY at any time, or not. In this manner the market gets to determine which protocol should succeed, and it determines it in a way that does not harm the consumer or limit his choices. Show me another company with the ability or the will to do something this comprehensively helpful.

easp 17y ago

I think the strategy google is pursuing with Chrome, ChromeOS, SPDY and even google docs is to make web-centric computing more widespread, both among the established base of existing desktop and laptop users, and among non-users like people in developing countries, and people who aren't doing mobile computing yet. Google benefits both because they are well positioned to monetize this type of computing, through both advertising, and fees for services like Google Apps; and because this kind of computing devalues the cash cows of their largest rival. The tactics they are using are to drive down costs (ie give Google Apps away to small businesses, and make it a lot cheaper than running exchange, deploying office, etc, for larger orgs), and to enhance the overall experience (ie make web apps faster via SPDY, fast javascript, etc). Against this background, projects like Chrome don't have to achieve market dominance to be successful, they just have to achieve broad influence. I don't think just delivering better performance when Chrome users visit Google's properties counts as success, though; I think they need to get other browsers and services to change too. I think SPDY is most likely to take off on mobile devices first. First, latency is a much bigger issue for cellular data than it is for WiFi, etc. Second, it looks like Google is going to get decent browser share on mobile devices. If Google implements SPDY in the Android browser, then makers of mobile web apps will likely embrace it. If that happens, then Apple, etc will feel the need to support it as well, lest the iPhone end up at a big disadvantage.

radu_floricica 17y ago
> Against this background, projects like Chrome don't have to achieve market dominance to be successful, they just have to achieve broad influence. Good point. After all, GMail's most immediate and important result was that every other mail provider dramatically increased their storage space. At the time yahoo offered only 4 mb for free - in a matter of weeks it jumped almost thousand-fold. Same with Chrome and javascript speed in Firefox.