This note deals with Netscape.

It covers -

• introduction
• rise and fall
• studies

    introduction

As noted in discussion elsewhere on this site regarding browsers, the rise and fall of Netscape reflects the interaction of technology, fashion, regulation and markets. In practice marketing decisions - particularly Microsoft's ability to coopt hardware partners such IBM and Dell - appear to have been more influential than the excellence of the code in particular browsers or their compliance with W3C standards.

    rise and fall

Early uptake of the web was underpinned by NCSA Mosaic, a Unix-based graphical browser developed by the US National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) and released in 1993. Mosaic was subsequently released in versions for PC (Microsoft Windows) and Apple Macintosh platforms.

Mosaic team leader Marc Andreesen left to form what would later become Netscape Communications Corporation, with support from James Clark, an executive of minicomputer manufacturer Silicon Graphics (SGI).

Netscape released its Navigator browser in October 1994, becoming the dominant player by the middle of 1995. Its expectation was that it would build a sustainable business by selling server software, with the browser being freely available. That vision intially looked credible, given Microsoft's dismissive view of the net (the first edition of Bill Gates' The Road Ahead famously ignored the web, reflecting perceptions that consumers would rely on proprietary networks such as AOL and MSN).

Media interest, government cheerleading and growing online populations in the West saw Microsoft respond by acquiring a web-authoring tool (FrontPage) for around US$100 million and release the Internet Explorer (IE) browser, with code ultimately drawn from the NCSA. That release was featured in Windows 95 Plus, with a default page set to MSN - a move that reinforced the 'legitimacy' of the web, gave Microsoft a major competitive advantage and led some users to equate IE/MSN with the net.

The market share of Netscape - and of the range of other browsers (such as Opera) that emerged in response to media coverage and Microsoft's new interest - accordingly declined. Netscape's competition with Microsoft in what was tagged as "the Browser Wars" was lauded by many pundits, browser users and hardware/software manufacturers such as Sun and Oracle. However, Netscape's US and global market share continued to decline, down from an estimated global 90% in 1995 to 72% in 1997 to 33% in 1999.

Netscape came under increasing pressure as financial analysts forecast ongoing decline and noted that competition from Microsoft over server software (which MS variously gave away or released at 'special prices') eroded Netscape's capacity for major innovation and marketing.

Neither of the two major players gained major plaudits from some specialist observers, who criticised a perceived balkanisation of the web through emphasis on proprietary extensions. Recurrent concerns about true interoperability were reflected in "viewable with any browser" campaigns, responding to signals from web designers that a site was optimised for a particular browser (eg a 'best viewed in Netscape' label).

In 1998, amid increasing dot-com giddiness, Netscape was acquired by AOL (subsequently to engulf the Time Warner media conglomerate) for US$4.2 billion. Acquisition was followed by the controversial release of code that came to form the basis of the Mozilla browser.

Netscape continued to lose market share. By 2005 it appears to have been used on a regular basis by less than 2% of the online population (although installed on a substantially higher number of machines in the 'anglosphere', a number that will progressively decline as old laptop and desktop machines are replaced).

In 2003 AOL tacitly abandoned Netscape, shuttering the Netscape division.

    studies

Jim Clark's memoir Netscape Time: The Making of the Billion-Dollar Startup that took on Microsoft (New York: St Martins 1999) is an interesting picture but suffers from having Clark on both ends of the camera lens in discussing the browser company.  

Speeding the Net: The Inside Story of Netscape & How It Challenged Microsoft (Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press 1998) by Joshua Quittner & Michelle Slatulla has more balance.

We recommend Competing on Internet Time: Lessons From Netscape & Its Battle with Microsoft (New York: Free Press 1998) a solid study by business analysts Michael Cusmano & David Yoffie and Cusmano's Microsoft Secrets: How the World's Most Powerful Software Company Creates Technology, Shapes Markets & Manages People (New York: Free Press 1995). 

A detailed profile of AOL Time Warner, the conglomerate that gobbled up Netscape, appears in our Ketupa site.

The much-hyped The New New Thing by Michael Lewis (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1999) is a portrait of zany Jim Clark (SGI, Netscape and Healtheon founder) and his very big computer-controlled boat, rather than a map of Silicon Valley and the Internet Economy. Judging by biographies cited elsewhere in this site Clark is no more disfunctional than many of the silicon mafia; Lewis appears to have built the book around him because Clark wasn't filtered by media minders.

Regrettably New New is less perceptive than Lewis' famed Liars Poker (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1989), The Money Culture (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1991) and Pacific Rift (London: Hodder & Stoughton 1992). The very rich dude with the very big boat featured in perceptive profiles in Wired 2.01 and 2.10 among others.



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