The beginning of the end for the Netscape Browser???

[Chris LeBlanc]

Raymond Wood 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).

Simply put, Netscape can no longer operate as a company against the like
of
Microsoft.  The mainstays of Netscape's money has been their Server line
of
products.  They have been taking a beating from both IIS and Apache. 
This
has led them to the problem of trying to have developers working on
browsers,
which won't bring them any money.

Now look at how they see things in this light:
1. Mozilla.org is close to releasing 1.0 (0.9.1 is out and 0.9.0 is very
stable).
2. There is not going to need to be any work from Netscape's part to get
the Mozilla browser out there.
3. They can simply say that they won't be seen as "a browser company,"
while letting the Mozilla team continue to do what they do.
4. Netscape gets to try and duke it out with MS on a variation of .NET
(focused on Netscape products using Mozilla as the browser).

Netscape is probably looking at using Sun's OpenOffice (formerly
StarOffice) system and Mozilla to create their own <dot>NET-like
system.  They are hoping that since their system will be usable by
people with Win9x (not just 2000 or XP) then more people will join the
Netscape bandwagon and steal MS's thunder.

This announcement was only their preparing to fight on a different front
(in words at least).

Just my 2bits.

Christopher LeBlanc
Lamar University Library - Beaumont, Texas

PS:  I use Linux, Netscape 4.76 and Mozilla 0.9, and I sometimes, just
sometimes, MS-bash, but only when I think they have deserved it.  :)