Question: Name a market in which Microsoft does 57 times better than Google…

Answer: Web browsers: according to recent numbers from Net Applications, Internet Explorer has 66.1% of the market, while Google’s Chrome browser sits at a meager 1.4% (in between are Firefox at 22% and Safari at 8.2%).

While 29% of North American households connected to the internet via broadband connections in 2008, Forrester expects that to more than double to 62% by 2010.  We’re also expecting consumer buy-in of cloud computing and netbooks to increase dramatically over the next few years.  As these trends play out, the web browser will assume an ever more important role: the operating system for the cloud.

So the stakes are high, and the next generation of browsers currently under development are intended to meet the challenge: Microsoft’s IE 8 and Mozilla’s Firefox 3.6 (unfortunately codenamed ‘Minefield’) are both now in beta testing, while Apple’s Safari 4 and Google’s Chrome 2.0 are still in alpha.  All feature faster and more powerful javascript engines, stronger security, and local memory storage implementations.

On a purely technical level, Chrome is already an excellent piece of software – much faster (and more standards-compliant) than the current Internet Explorer, and arguably better than even the current versions of FireFox and Safari (both excellent browsers in their own right).

Currently, Internet Explorer enjoys a commanding market share lead over the competition, despite its technical shortcomings – and things are not going to get any easier for Microsoft’s competition: substantial improvements are promised for IE8, and the browser will ship with Windows 7, which  is expected to sell extremely well (as those of us who sat out Vista play catch-up).  Mozilla and Norway-based Opera are out there slugging it out with Microsoft over the bundling issue, but Google remains silent. Instead, we see just a limited amount of relatively modest in-house promotions: a YouTube “Chrome” channel and this charming (and inexpensive) stop-animation spot created by a Google team in Japan.

Why is Google so low-key about promoting Chrome?  Of course, search is where the real money is – and given the fact that Google is generating a lot of revenue (and almost singlehandedly supporting Mozilla in the process) by being the default search engine on the Firefox toolbar, perhaps Google already thinks of Mozilla as a quasi-subsidiary.  Having gone to the trouble of developing Chrome, though, one would think Google has to want that 1.4% market share to grow (potentially, Chrome could serve not only as a web browser but as an optimized interface for Google Docs and Google Apps as well).

Apple prompts users to install Safari with every iTunes update, and Microsoft continues to bundle IE with Windows – but Google has  an obvious lever of its own to pull, too:  the Google search page! Why isn’t there a small unobtrusive “Download Chrome Today” link right there under the much-loved Google logo?  (it’s not like there’s not enough screen real estate on the page )

Could it be concern over antitrust issues?  I’m curious as to what others out there think, because I have a confession to make: despite how good I know Chrome is, I still haven’t downloaded and installed it yet myself!  Why?  Partially inertia, I guess – but mostly because I’ve been happy with Firefox and have grown comfortable with the particular set of add-ons I run.

All of which only serves to underscores the need for Google to start promoting Chrome more heavily – because if we tech-curious folks aren’t downloading it, they’ve got a heavy lift ahead of them…