Two months after Foolish colleague Evan Niu predicted that Google's
Words can't fully describe what this means:
See the pattern here? Not only is IE losing share -- and rapidly -- but other browsers are also on a fast track to nowhere, including Apple's
And that's what makes Chrome's rise so interesting -- a buy signal, even. Safari is a good browser. It's fast, it's as secure as peers, and it does a terrific job of rendering video. Why would any Mac user choose Chrome? Because Google's browser is always going to be better at running the code that makes Google's various apps function.
I'm talking specifically about Gmail, Calendar, and the various piece parts of the Google Apps suite that has proved popular among corporate and government clients. Recent wins include drugmaker Roche and the U.S. Department of the Interior. More than 4 million businesses are using the Google-y suite for business as of this writing.
To my mind, there's little doubt where Google is headed with Chrome. The Big G wants its search engine and browser to be our on-ramp to the Web, with apps accounting for an increasing amount of our usage, adding still more information to the world's richest account of our lives on the Web. It's an archive that dwarfs even Facebook
Think I'm wrong? Do you find Google too volatile a stock for your portfolio? Fair enough. There are plenty more options for safe growth, including these nine rock-solid dividend payers.