CIO.com Quick Poll: Does Google Chrome Stand a Fighting Chance in the Browser War?

On Tuesday, search giant Google launched the first beta release of its open source Web browser, Google Chrome, with both of the company’s famed founders, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, lauding browser technology as fundamental to the company’s future success.

Google’s a force to be reckoned with when it comes to Web-based technologies, but that doesn’t mean everything it touches turns to gold. Quite the contrary, really; for every successful initiative Google undertakes, a handful of projects are slowly swept under the rug, rarely to be mentioned again—except in jest.

Though initial impressions of Google Chrome are largely positive, it remains to be seen whether or not it can compete with the clear market leaders: Microsoft and its Internet Explorer Browser, which currently commands just over 72 percent of the browser space; and Mozilla’s Firefox browser which holds nearly 20 percent market share, according to numbers from Net Applications’ Hitslink.

Though Brin and Page claim Google Chrome is designed first and foremost to spark innovation throughout the browser market, its success will be largely dependent on how many IE, Firefox, Apple Safari and Opera users make the switch to Chrome, or at least divide their time between Google’s browser offering and the proven players’ products.