Tuesday, June 2, 2015

The History of Google Chrome

It looked like Microsoft was going to do it again ... complete, total, absolute market domination. Yes there were a few upstarts like Mozilla tossing a web browser into the ring, but Microsoft's Internet Explorer owned the market.

Jump back to 1988 when a young Danish man by the name of Lars Bak graduated with an MS degree in Computer Science from Denmark's Aarhus University. Lars quickly became a JavaScript prodigy.

Sun Microsystems picked up Lars and put him to work on virtual machines, or coded programs within a larger system. After several years in Sunny Cupertino, California Lars Bak was anxious to return to his home country of Denmark. He left Sun to start his own company OOVM.

Impressed by his team's work, Microsoft decided to bring Lars on. They made Lars a fabulous offer, which Lars summarily refused. He was more interested in growing his own projects and staying close to his daughters who were studying in Denmark.

About the same time Google also made a move pick up Lars Bak. Again the lure of a great paycheck was insufficient incentive. Google then made a counter offer that was unprecedented in the corporate world. Google offered to build an office in Denmark for Lars and his entire team if he world bring his projects to Google. Lars readily accepted.

Fast forward a few months and the world saw the release of the now dominant Google Chrome, all thanks to Lars Bak and his team.

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