Chrome for Macs coming “in a couple of months”

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt has claimed that a version of Chrome for Macs should be ready in a couple of months.

Schmidt appeared alongside Google founder Sergey Brin at a New York press conference to discuss the state of the technology and search markets, and projects including Chrome and Android.

Google had originally slated Chrome for Macs to appear in the first half of 2010, but Schmidt suggested it may now appear before Christmas as the company looks to bolster its market share.

“I see a lot of Macs in this room, and a lot of very sophisticated people are using Macs now and we need to get a version of Chrome out for that, which we’ll have in a couple of months. The key to browser strength is speed,” said Schmidt.

I see a lot of Macs in this room, and a lot of very sophisticated people are using Macs now

The comment was in response to a question from the crowd on why Chrome had not had the impact on the market many were expecting. It was a suggestion refuted by Brin.

“Some of your premises about Chrome are incorrect, in terms of adoption, and we’re going to get that message out. It’s [market share] actually exceeding our benchmarks,” he said.

Scmidt also made a number of interesting comments around its bitterly contested $125 million deal with the Authors Guild and the Association of American publishers to create a massive repository of digitised books.

“With respect to book search, we were doing something that we thought was appropriate,” Schmidt claimed. “We were sued and after three years of discussion we’ve come to a settlement. This is perfectly normal. There’s nothing particularly exclusive about what we’re doing.

“The rights registry we’re doing is for the benefits of orphan works. It’s not a particularly good business for us. We’re going it because we think it’s the right thing to do. We don’t think settlement is perfect but we think it’s good,” he concluded.