Every Tuesday, Gadzooki takes a look at ten top tech stories from the past week and serves them up to you in manageable chunks for easy digestion. Be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed or Twitter account so you don’t miss them.
1. Sony Vaio laptops preloaded with Google Chrome browser
Apparently it’s been happening for some time, but Sony has been preloading some of its US-destined VAIO laptops with Google’s Chrome web browser.
That’s a great result for Google, even thought VAIO’s aren’t necessarily the most popular laptops going and that Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox have a huge market share in comparison (~70%/20%).
Is this a sign that Sony might be keen to get Google’s forthcoming Chrome OS on board? It would be interesting to know, though hard to measure, how much damage PC manufacturers have suffered as a result of sticking Windows Vista on their computers. Windows 7 might be better, but perhaps Chrome OS will join Linux as a credible alternative OS — even as a build option rather than by default — for hardware vendors wanting to distance themselves from Microsoft.
Chrome might only have about two percent of the browser market share at present, but I just get the feeling that share will grow as more deals are done and the word gets out to Joe Public.