Scott blogged on the IE7 Beta, which was released last week to the public.  Now Google is belly-aching about the search bar and which engine is set to default.  Without question, no one expected Microsoft to do anything but set MSN as the default search provider on its own browser.  But Google and everyone else knows these few hundred square pixels on the toolbar could mean big swings in search engine market share toward the end of this year and into 2007.  With IE still at 85% market share, and Firefox losing steam, Google might be getting desperate. 

Incidently, you didn't hear a peep from Google when Firefox and Opera, both Google allies, set Google as the default search engine in their browser.  But now, Google would be happy to open those up if MSN will reciprocate.  Yeah, right...

This goes back to something I wrote about last fall.  In order to Google to survive, they cannot count on users typing in google.com in the web browser.  This will be an archaic practice in a matter of months.  Since most users will take the path of least resistance, Google must get in front of your face proactively.  They seem to be doing well on some fronts, but the browser / operating system battle could pose problems.