The "browser wars" should be renamed the "browser battles."

In its boldest move yet to secure tech dominance on the internet, Google today released a Web browser aimed squarely at the market dominated by Microsoft—but the bigger target is the operating system, and Microsoft's Office software suite, a cash cow for Microsoft totaling $15 billion.

"Google really believes that the internet is the new operating system," said Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of Search Engine Land, a technology news and analysis website. "Google wants to provide the applications that people use on the Web, and the best way to do that is to make them compatible with its own browser." (Google spread word of the new browser via a comic-book explaining the back story. Click here for Portfolio.com's slightly different version.)

This new battleground is much broader than others over internet software—including search—because it is a war for control over computer software, and suggests that Google's larger target is Microsoft Office, and even Windows itself.

But unlike the Windows or Vista operating systems, a Google operating system is expected to be one native to the Web, instead of residing on individual computer desktops.
 
Some experts believe that Chrome, when combined with Google's growing suite of Web-based applications, including Gmail and Google Docs, could pose a challenge to Microsoft's domination of computer operating systems and its highly profitable Office software suite.

"Chrome is a double threat to Microsoft," said Sullivan. "It's not just about the browser threat to Internet Explorer. It reinforces the threat to Microsoft on the application front as well."

In a blog post, Sundar Pichai, a Google vice president for product management, sought to portray Chrome as not just a browser, "but also a modern platform for webpages and applications."

Prior to the advent of "always connected" broadband internet, most computer software was either for offline use, like word processing and spreadsheets, or for online use, like Web browsers. But Google is clearly pushing for a new model, one that integrates all software into a Web-based platform centered around a Web browser.