SAN JOSE, Calif. — Google's announcement of Chrome may spark a browser war, but it is also a significant push for Javascript as a Web application development language as opposed to Adobe Flash and Microsoft Silverlight, said one Web software executive.

“I believe we will witness the emergence of Javascript as the dominant language of computing,” according to a blog posting from Sridhar Vembu, chief executive of AdventNet/Zoho which claims a million registered users for its Web applications.

“Zoho, Google, Yahoo and others all heavily depend on Javascript–it has been the little language that could,” said Vembu in an interview with EE Times. “What's been holding Javascript back is the speed of its implementation which has been slow and buggy.”

Early tests of Chrome are showing a doubling or tripling of Javascript performance in based in part on its new V8 compiler, said Vembu. In addition, Mozilla's Firefox includes an improved Javascript virtual machine, he added.

“I believe it is realistic to expect a ten-fold performance increase over the next six months,” said Vembu. “As Javascript advances rapidly, it inevitably encroaches on the territory currently held by Flash,” he added.

“I believe there will be a move to native support for video in Javascript as the next big step. It just seems logical,” Vembu said. “Video has been one key missing piece in the browser experience.”

Native support for video in Javascript could make it easier to meld data and video in applications, Vembu said. Today most Web video processing happens outside the browser in Flash running on the host system.

“It could be argued Javascript is already the de facto language for Web applications, [but] this doesn't exclude Flash Player,” said Emmy Huang, Flash Player product manager at Adobe.

“For 12 years, Adobe Flash Player has consistently enabled browsers with new capabilities including H.264 video and a high-performance virtual machine,” Huang said. “Many of the capabilities Flash provides are now being considered for inclusion in the HTML5 specification and some of them have been incorporated into Chrome,” she added.

As many as 98 percent of networked desktops use Flash Player, and more than 80 percent of Web videos are played through the Flash Player, she said in an email exchange. Vembu of Zoho said he would expect applications will support Flash for many years to come, although they may shift to using Javascript as a preferred environment at some future stage.

Vembu also expressed concerns about the rise of Silverlight, an emerging Web development environment from Microsoft. If it becomes successful, Microsoft might downgrade its support for operating systems and browsers from other companies and tie it more closely to Microsoft own products, he said.

“History shows they tend to want to dominate everything,” Vembu said.

“Once Microsoft's Internet Explorer became dominant, it reduced or eliminated support for the Mac and Solaris,” he added. “Silverlight could become a sort of extension to Windows. There are already indications they are moving in that direction,” he said.