[WEB4LIB] RE:The beginning of the end for the Netscape Browser???

[Thomas Dowling]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Raymond Wood" <raywood at magma.ca>
To: "Multiple recipients of list" <web4lib at webjunction.org>
Sent: Friday, June 08, 2001 5:02 PM
Subject: [WEB4LIB] RE:The beginning of the end for the Netscape Browser???


> On 8 Jun 2001, at 13:54, Drew, Bill wrote:
>
> > Netscape was dead the minute it was sold to AOL-TimeWarner.  That
> > should have been obvious that a content company would not continue to
> > develop a browser especially when it can't compete with IE.
>
> Well, since this seems to be my day for splitting hairs...  :)
>
> I think Navigator was competing with Explorer just fine.  The real
> issue was that Netscape (the company) could not compete with
> Microsoft's huge war chest combined with its monopolistic
> practices (i.e. product dumping).

I've never been very sympathetic to Netscape's plight.  They made their
name by running roughshod over the standards of the time, tacitly
encouraging developers to write pages that didn't work in other browsers,
which rapidly whithered and died.  I do get a chuckle out of remembering
their early plans to knock Microsoft off by using open standards, and then
having Microsoft squish them [in part] through better adherence to those
standards.

Netscape was the 4th grade bully who got carried away and picked a fight
with the 5th grade bully.


Thomas Dowling
OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu