Sundar Pichai, Google's vice president, has revealed that the company is negotiating to include a pre-installed Chrome browser in computers that are ready to be marketed.
Google is currently negotiating with four major computer vendors, Dell, HP, Acer and Toshiba, on the project. This is also the plan to regain market share for the browser that Google has just presented a few months ago to compete with Internet Explorer browser with Microsoft Windows operating system.
Speaking in an interview with The Times, Sundar Pichai revealed that Google is working and has nearly reached a support agreement of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). He also said that in the first half of 2009, Google will release a version of Chrome browser for Linux and Mac environments as well as end the beta period (testing) of the Chrome version for Windows.
Representatives from Dell Computer said they were also excited about the plan to replace IE with Chrome on its future computers.
If successful, this will be an important stepping stone to gaining more market share of Chrome, but the browser will take a long time because its current market share is only 0.74%, while IE still accounts for 71% and Firefox accounts for 20%.