Google is pursuing a very powerful strategy. One way of looking at it, odd though it seems, is to consider the original browser wars between Netscape and Microsoft. Netscape had the opportunity to undermine Microsoft, but it did exactly the wrong thing. It took the battle to the PC, delivering browser functionality on the PC that Microsoft could match quite easily. The simple bundling of IE with Windows destroyed Netscape’s challenge in very little time.

Netscape should have chosen to fight on the server.

As it happened, the company that won the browser wars was Yahoo. It provided much of the server functionality that Netscape should have been focused on. Unfortunately, for Yahoo, it never saw Google coming. Google came right out of left field. It established its search engine business in a crowded market when it should have been all but impossible. Its killer capability was to provide a well designed interface. (Damn it, its interface is still streets ahead of the competition.) Then it rose to challenge Yahoo, and AOL, and Microsoft, and it gaily marched past them all.

This week Google announced a chat (instant messaging) capability that also happens to be a VoIP capability. You can only sign up if you are also a Gmail (Google email) user – but now it has opened Gmail up to all comers to make the adoption process easy.

This is what I think is going on: Google is going to deliver unified messaging as a service. Right now it’s not sophisticated, but right now nobody else is doing that, so it doesn’t matter too much. Google’s chat capability is inferior to those of Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo and its VoIP is inferior to Skype. Never mind, it won’t remain so for long. And as for VoIP, I had been wondering who would be able to challenge Skype and now we have the answer: Google.

How Google will evolve its service is not so easy to predict, but it will – it will bring VoIP, chat and email together by virtue of a single directory. If Google gets it right quickly then it will gradually attract both consumers and small businesses. (Why not have Google look after all of your messaging for free?).

Of course, this is not Google’s only initiative – it is competing furiously to maintain its grip on the search market – but this is the initiative that will give Microsoft pause for thought. Maybe Microsoft will buy Skype? (No, I’m just kidding).