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

[Chris LeBlanc]

Raymond Wood wrote:
> Well who knows about the .Net thing - I mean, P.T. Barnum said "there's a
> sucker born every minute" and/or "you can fool most of the people most
> of the time".  If .Net flies (and I have no real doubts that most people
> will be dragged along, even if a few are kicking and screaming) then it
> will be another testament to Barnum's cynical wisdom.  Even Linus
> Torvalds (inventor of the Linux kernel), an infamously even-tempered
> fellow, said recently that the whole idea of convincing people to rent
> their software instead of owning it was just nutty.  If any marketing
> department is up to the challenge, it is Microsoft's  :)

Actually, I think that Netscape/AOL are looking at the idea the Sun had
for
StarOffice.  You download parts of the application (or even all of it),
and
what you don't run locally you run from their systems.  But the clincher
is
that they would sell you space on their systems to store and share your
files.

Say your office decides to use this.  That office doesn't need a server
to
store the files on, just Internet access and each one logs into the
StarOffice
server.  Then each can share files and have their own files.  The
backups,
security, everything, is handles remotely.  To computer Pros this may
seem
very silly (especially the security part) but most companies want this
kind of system.  That keeps an office of a dozen from hiring another
person
just to run the computers.

> > 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.  :)
> 
> Don't even think twice - *of course* they deserve it.  Would you feel
> guilty about bad-mouthing the Mafia?? ;>

Not guilty, but concerned, because the Mafia has hit men!

Really, MS has (I can't believe I am saying this) done some good things.
Well, not necessarily good things, just brought products to the fore-
front of peoples minds, if even for their own purposes.  I can't think
of any right now, but there are some.  Oh wait, how about the horrible
$500 per license for WordPerfect 5.x that most schools were locked into.
MS comes out with Works (including Word) for about $100 to $150 and
all of a sudden everyone was saving $400 over WP.  Now about 10 years
later, Office is the dominate, and the costs are quickly rising with
$240
being the XP Standard upgrade price and new purchases around that $500
mark of WP 5.x (and Professional and Developer being higher).

Why is this happening, because they do not feel concerned about any
"competition" out there.

How does this fit with Netscape deciding they want to get out of the
browser market (for those of you who have read this far)?  Simply,
the last version of Netscape (6.0) was simply Mozilla 0.6
(about half-baked) and changed just a bit.  The changes did not make
it better.  Now with Mozilla at 0.9.1, I think it is lots better
than NS 6.0, and it is only going to get better.  Netscape is realizing
that the Mozilla team is doing browser development a lot better without
Netscape getting in the way.

As for the Mozilla vs. NCSA thing, Mosaic (the product of NCSA) was
not intended to be a "consumer" web browser.  It was a reference system,
much like Amaya is a reference system.  These are just there to verify/
check that all of the HTML is up-to-spec, but not necessarily for
general-purpose web browsing.  NCSA felt that general-purpose browsers
was a little 'below them,' although they never said this out-right. 
Netscape jumped in and wanted to not only make a good general-purpose
browser, but to also make that browser the reference-model
people wanted to use.  As for making money from it, they weren't going
to make money from selling the browser, but the stuff to go with it.
You could download their browser for free, but if you wanted the
complete (Gold) edition with HTML composer, email software, and WinSock 
(Windows Socket, to make Win3.x talk TCP/IP) components, then you
could go out and buy the Netscape Gold CD at stores.

Making Mozilla the "Mosaic Killer" was just fun jabbing at NCSA who
often felt better than others, the same others that Netscape was
targeting for.

PS: Opera 5.0 (at least for GNU/Linux) rocks!

Christopher LeBlanc
Lamar University Library - Beaumont, Texas
leblanc at library.lamar.edu
only make a