Not necessarily true. Imagine the likes of the Eee PC with a thin client that basically just has Chrome, plus a locally hosted web server with some basic productivity apps? You can run the apps standalone or hosted in the cloud. You could even migrate your local standalone data to the cloud, or sync it so you can work in both modes.

You don't have to move the IE userbase on PCs. It's not even certain that everyone will be using PCs in the future. (Maybe just content creators, designers, and programmers will be using them?)

"The IE userbase won't move, because it's comprised of those who for various reasons are loyal to Microsoft, and those who are ignorant about browsers in general."

Google has a popular website with which to inform people of Chrome when they choose to do so, and their brand is stronger than Firefox and Mozilla, so those who stick with IE due to brand loyalty are more likely to switch to Chrome than Firefox. Outside of corporate installations, Chrome has the potential to convert many IE users.

Even within corporate installations, actually. Chrome installs entirely in user space on a XP machine, and doesn't need admin permissions to install. That should allow it to be installed on all but the most locked-down corporate boxes.

If IE users are all ignorant of other browsers, how did FireFox manage to eat into their market share? Or is it that every IE user who could be enticed to switch browsers have already switched?

Some of the "loyalists" were risk averse. Chrome, since it's from Google, has a very different risk profile than all of the other "not IE" browsers.

Moreover, Google has much more ability to get its message to end users.

What about "corportate" or "enterprise" users who are severely locked down and at the mercy of IT departments? I imagine they are large percentage of IE6 (and 7) users?