Google Says HTML 5 Tools Leave Microsoft In the Dust

Google led off its Google I/O 2009 developer conference in San Francisco by declaring "the Web has won" -- that is, the Internet and Web browsers, not a computer's operating system, are the future of application development.

Google also showed off a number of new Web tools that demonstrate Google's embrace of HTML 5 and other emerging Web standards, a focus Google says sets it apart from Microsoft and other development competitors.

"The Web has won," said Google Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundotra, according to The Register and numerous other reports from the Google I/O conference. "It has become the dominant programming model of our time."

HTML 5, whose most recent draft from the HTML Working Group was published in mid-April, is attractive to developers because it allows them to write for open browser standards instead of operating systems. Gundotra used his keynote to blast his former employer, Microsoft, and infer that Microsoft had yet to embrace HTML 5 standards in its own offerings.

"You can imagine how excited we were to hear Microsoft's public statement about their commitment to the HTML 5 standard. And we eagerly await actually seeing evidence of that," Gundotra said.

Some of the new HTML 5 features coming for Google properties include extensions for Google Chrome, the search giant's much-publicized new Web browser, and features for Donut, the codename of its Android 2.0 platform.

One new Chrome extension is Google Web Elements, a program that enables developers to add Google applications to pages with minimal coding. Google is actively experimenting with many of the major HTML 5 concepts, including canvas tags (bringing sophisticated graphics to Web applications without plug-ins), video tags and geolocation (as in Google's Latitude application).

According to reports, Gundotra and Google also welcomed Mozilla to its stage, with Mozilla Vice President Jake Sullivan confirming that HTML 5 features would be part of the upcoming Firefox 3.5 browser.

It was a bit of a detente for ostensible competitors -- Google is positioning Chrome as an alternative to Firefox, Microsoft's Internet Explorer and other browsers. But Gundotra's underlying message is clear: four out of the five major Web browsers -- Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera -- are all open-standards browsers with HTML 5 adoption in the works.