WebProNews

A market share of 0.74 percent is not good for morale at most companies, and perhaps all the less so at Google, where (Lively debacle aside) things tend to go well.  So, starting in January, the search giant's going to take some rather unusual steps towards improving Google Chrome's position.

Sundar Pichai, a vice president of product management, told Murad Ahmed that Chrome should be brought out of beta sometime around that period.  Think of Gmail and its immortal beta tag as you process that fact.

Then we get to something even less in step with Google's traditional nature.  Pichai said, "We will probably do distribution deals. . . .  [W]e could work with an OEM and have them ship computers with Chrome pre-installed."  Or pay manufacturers in order to stick users with the browser by default, in other words.

There will be advertising campaigns, too, as Pichai continued, "We will throw our weight behind it. . . .  [O]nce we get it out of beta we will work hard at getting the word out, promoting to users, and marketing will be a part of that."

Keep an eye out for some changes in the pie charts put out by Net Applications, then; Google doesn't appear to at all enjoy being just two spots above "other."