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The talk of the town is Apple's big iPhone 4 deal with Verizon, but Google also came to the table yesterday with a little announcement of their own. Google delivered an under-the-radar announcement, stating they will be dropping support for the h.264 codec in favor of their open source WebM codec.

Google claims their Chrome browser dropping h.264 is about supporting open standards. If Google were truly concerned with supporting open standards, why does the proprietary Flash still ship with Chrome as a preinstalled plug-in? As John Gruber of Daring Fireball points out, the hypocrisy is thick.

When Google talks open standards, what do they mean exactly? Google speaks the truth in that the WebM codec is free and deploy as you will, but at the end of the day, Google controls the strings to the codec. Yesterday's moves from Google does not aid in HTML5 advancement, rather, it muddies the waters. HTML5 was plowing ahead as an open standards juggernaut, but Chrome's exclusion of h.264 clearly cause hesitation to it's adoption. Google isn't about open standards, they are about controlling web standards and controlling the strings of those open standards is how Google gets there.

Within Google's move hides another player, Adobe. Mr. Narayen hasn't rolled over and yielded to Apple's non-Flash world, rather, he's run to Google for help. In the short-term, Google's move may push mobile video folks back to Flash. Ironically, Google's move to support an "open standard" encourages a completely buggy, battery draining, proprietary solution in Flash.

The codec mess Google is attempting to create forces video creators to make a choice. Go back to developing with Flash (which the overall market is rapidly moving away from), or chose to ignore Chrome users and stick with h.264 and HTML5 implementations.

Which path will developers choose?

Chrome has a minute 12.62% share in the US, and 14.6% share in Europe, barely edging out Safari's irrelevant shares. In the short-term, developers are likely to continue to use h.264, which is supported in hardware decoding and software solutions across the board. h.264 saves mobile device battery life and is scaleable for deployment to blu-ray HD to 320 x 240 resolutions and everywhere in-between.

Whether Google realizes this or not, Chrome is likely to be the odd man out. Chrome's just joined the world of Safari for mobile. Safari ignores Flash, while Chrome stifling millions of users ability to watch any h.264 web video.

Not to be left out is Microsoft, which has embraced h.264. Internet Explorer's share has been eaten alive by Chrome lately, so don't think Ballmer and crew will sit back and let this issue slide on by. Microsoft is likely to take exploit Google's codec misstep with a full head of steam. This may very well be a case where Redmond fights Apple's battle for them, while Google attempts to re-triangulate their position.

2 Comments

1. Robert ~ January 13, 2011 18:49
   Chrome just isn't that good a browser and flash is not very good either. Yes, Google and Adobe will lose out to Apple. Just look at the number of iPods, iPads and iPhones out there. None of which support Flash. The only sites that actually use Flash anymore are the Porn sites and Google already knows if you're been there !!!
2. TheMacAdvocate ~ January 14, 2011 17:13
   This move is a shockingly transparent revelation on Google's part about how far they'll go to stunt iOS's adoption in the wake of the Verizon iPhone announcement. Who stands to gain the most if the H.264/HTML5 transition is made? Apple. Who stands to gain the most by quashing its adoption in favor of a proprietary runtime (Flash)? Not just Adobe, but the devices that feature Flash functionality as a core part of their advertising - namely mobile devices running Android. I'm hoping that the web development community drowns out the freetard contingent on this and sees it for what it is: a disingenuous attempt by Google to jerk semantic strings in order to gain control of web standards.

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