What other options do they have? Even on HN you hear "I use Egde to download Chrome". Many of you here don't test your own work in Edge. At the same time Microsoft is getting the heat that Windows 10 is unstable and the last major update shows that it is. Very urgently, I imagine, Microsoft is trying to change the perception of Windows 10 by doing everything they can to make it more stable. Changing the browser engin…
How can I test Edge when Microsoft don't release it for Mac and Linux? A browser for a single OS? Talk about monoculture.
Working across different OS and devices has pretty much been Google's go-to strategy, and it's worked pretty well for: Web Browser, Office Suite, and Cloud Storage (not naming them all). In retrospect, I would say an F-up by Microsoft and Apple was fighting interoperability. It worked for years in a PC world, but as the world became more mobile-centric that strategy faltered.
The timing was right to deliver a browser that "works everywhere" for most people, while IE and Safari wanted to maintain the walled garden experience in their own domains. For a lot of people (and also generalizing in the non-technical population), being able to stick with a single browser _feels_ like a win because of the consolidation. Someone who owns a Windows laptop and an iPhone could now have their bookmarks and account synced across devices with the (nearly) same browser.
My main gripe with Chrome is that there isn't mobile adblocking built in, and there is no mobile extension support. (This is where mobile Safari + Firefox Focus for adblocking actually outpaces Chrome). If Google can address this, then that would be a game changer for Chrome on iOS.
Microsoft knows IE is a sinking ship, and their best bet in the browser market is to take a page out of Google's playbook. I'm not sure if Apple actually cares or if they have too much of an exclusive (maybe a better word?) mindset to want to open Safari up to Windows and Android.
From a business perspective, there's a lot to be gained by being a leader in the browser market. Chrome is a great way to lead people into Gmail, Drive, Docs, etc. (more Google services). If Microsoft is going to make a play, now is the time to do it to attempt to pull users. They are already losing the cloud fight to AWS and the browser fight to Chrome (and the mobile OS fight to iOS and Android). If we start to see more cloud-based desktops, such as an improved Chrome OS, then Microsoft is in trouble since Windows is their last bastion left. I am all for hopping on the dissing-Microsoft train, but there's actually some respectable forethought here.
Now the pressure is on Google to keep innovating Chrome, as they would love to have people signing up for Google accounts and using Chrome prior to pushing out a better Chrome OS (which I think will be the cross-platform Android successor). If desktops head in that direction, then I would expect a sizable amount of people to migrate away from Windows to Chrome OS (if it works on desktop/tablet/mobile).
Then, I honestly wonder what Apple will do. They are clinging to the iPhone and iOS for dear life. It makes up a ton of their business. Apple nailed it with creating the top UIs on mobile and desktop (my biasedly-objective assessment), and having cross-device syncing with Messages, Calendar, Notes, iCloud, etc. (Also, having a UNIX-based desktop is niceee). Now I wonder if they will do anything with their device prices. They really have a lot of potential to acquire Windows converts, but Apple is so tied to hardware manufacturing revenue it's a pseudo-Catch-22. At ~$1k for a phone, ~$500-$1k for a tablet, and ~$1k-$2k for a laptop, that's inherently not something a mass-adoption level of people could comfortably afford. There's a question of how price sensitive consumers are, and what Apple stands to gain/lose by changing from more products -> more services (revenue from digital/ads/data/subscriptions). I don't know these answers, but this is something Apple will need to address in the near future.
What things are approaching: AWS runs the internet, Chrome is the door to the internet, and iPhone is the foundation that provides utility to reach the internet (while Android phones do the same for more people). It equal parts interesting and unnerving.