Mike,
NSCP news article:
_____
Thursday August 6 3:23 PM ET
Netscape freefall continues
By Ben Elgin, ZDNet
While the browser is a zero revenue game for resellers, it is the linchpin to Netscape's success--both in propelling users to its portal site and in seeding deployment of its enterprise software.
Nonetheless, despite drastic efforts to shore up its floundering browser market share, Communicator usage continues to nose dive.
Perhaps most ominous for Netscape Communications Corp., a July study from Zona Research Inc. indicates a steep slide in the corporate marketplace. Wrought from 260 corporations, Zona's data found that Netscape's browser share has dipped to 54 percent, while Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer now garners 45 percent of the market. That's a drastic change from previous surveys.
Moreover, 55 percent of IT respondents said IE was their company's standard browser. This suggests that some 10 percent of Communicator users are corporate grunts who refuse to embrace Internet Explorer.
"Clearly, corporate browser policies have continued to influence browser placement within the enterprise," says Clay Ryder, Zona's chief analyst, who estimates that two-thirds of corporate users have little or no choice in which browser they use.
Such news may be discouraging for Netscape, which completely overhauled its browser distribution strategy and opened up its source code to avoid these very results.
While enterprise software sales could feasibly withstand a demise of the browser, it is doubtful that the Netcenter Web portal would fare as well. After all, over half of Netcenter's visitors come from Communicator's default start page.
Netscape executives insist that market-share numbers are secondary to user-base growth. After all, 85 percent of 10 million Web users is a lot less than 55 percent of 40 million Web users, says Netscape Executive Vice President Marc Andreessen.
"We've lost market share, but we've grown our user base simultaneously. We just have to make sure these new users become Netcenter members," he says.
Ibexx |
