In advance of its tenth anniversary as a company, Google this week launched a beta version of its first Web browser, Chrome — a move widely perceived as an assault on Microsoft’s dominant Internet Explorer browser. But Google’s motivation for developing its own browser may be more a response to cross-browser runtime platforms like Flash and Silverlight than to other Web browsers.

While the company’s launch event touted many of Chrome’s new features — its streamlined “chrome free” look, integrated search and navigation, multi-process architecture — a principal goal underlying Google’s entrance into the browser market is to cement the browser’s role as a platform for rich Internet applications (RIAs).  A number of commentators — including Ryan Stewart, Nick Carr, and Wharton’s Kevin Werbach — noted that Google’s concern isn’t on competing in the browser market per se but, rather, in positioning the Web browser has a platform for the next generation of Web-based applications. As Sundar Pichai, a Google vice president of product management, wrote on the company’s blog, “We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser.”

While Google’s ultimate aim may be to use the browser — as it does its search site — to collect information about users’ online behavior to support its advertising business, the more immediate goal is to assure that the browser is a robust development platform for Web-based applications using JavaScript to code to the browser’s document object model (DOM) and AJAX-based communication techniques.

At the launch event for Chrome, Pichai stressed that Google chose WebKit as the HTML engine for its compatibility with existing web sites. “Wanted to make sure we didn’t create a headache for developers,” Pichai explained in response to concerns about browser compatibility. “If your site works in Safari, it works in Chrome” since the two browsers use the same WebKit HTML engine

In regard to JavaScript, Google choose a different path, however. The Google team “rewrote a completely new JavaScript engine from scratch for Chrome,” according to Pichai. The factor driving the JavaScript overhaul was performance. “Most Web developers don’t use JavaScript a lot because it doesn’t run that fast in the browser,” Pichai stated.

Think about that last statement for a moment. Is performance the major barrier to using JavaScript to build enterprise-scale Web applications? I suspect that for most developers cross-browser compatibility is a larger impediment than raw performance.

The problem with the JavaScript/DOM/AJAX approach to RIAs is that your code has to run consistently in a diverse set of browser environments. This is precisely the problem that cross-browser runtime environments like Flash and Silverlight are designed to solve. They provide a development environment that is rich enough to build meaningful applications while remaining stable and consistent across different operating systems and browsers.

I’ve only used Chrome intermittently for a few days. While I’m impressed with its speed, its uncluttered interface, and convenient additions like the Omnibox and the handy start page, I’ve also encountered a number of compatibility issues. Adding a new application to my Facebook profile — which worked fine in Firefox — failed without any notice in Chrome. When Microsoft’s web site asked whether I wanted to complete a survey before continuing, Chrome wouldn’t let me move on to the next page.

Perhaps these problems are the result of poorly written browser-specific code on these sites. And, of course, the current release of Chrome is a first generation beta. Hopefully these issues will be resolved in the future. Furthermore, as an open source application, Chrome’s new “V8” JavaScript engine could, in theory, serve as the foundation for establishing a common JavaScript platform in other browsers.

Nonetheless, while Google’s use of WebKit for the browser’s HTML engine will help Web site creators avoid compatibility issues, introducing a new JavaScript interpreter presents yet another platform-consistency concern for Web application developers. If Google is serious about advancing JavaScript and the browser’s DOM for RIA development, the company needs to focus on standardizing the runtime environment at least as much as boosting performance.

• Tech Trends