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Technology Stocks : Netscape -- Giant Killer or Flash in the Pan? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: chirodoc who wrote (2222)	2/2/1998 2:40:00 AM
From: Sung Q. Kim	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 4903

Off Topic, Virus alert. I received this email, and want to share it with you guys. One of our clients sent this e-mail VIRUS warning to our offices today. We immediatly thought of all our other clients and users... and how this VIRUS might effect them if they did not know about it intime. This is a Virus Alert -- Watch Your Email Messages. If you receive an email titled: JOIN THE CREW ( DO NOT open it.) It will erase everything on your hard drive. Forward this letter out to as many people as you can. This is a new, very malicious virus and not many people know about it. This information was announced yesterday morning from IBM; please share it with everyone that might access the internet. Once again, pass this along to EVERYONE in your address book so that this may be stopped. Also, do not open or even look at any mail that says: RETURNED OR UNABLE TO DELIVERY ( DO NOT open it.) This virus will attach itself to your computer components and render them useless. Immediately delete any mail items that say this. AOL has said that this is a very dangerous virus and that there is NO remedy = for it at this time. ************************************************* I hope this e-mail reaches you in time. Sincerely, J. Adam Hewison President INO GLOBAL Markets U.S. 888-CYBER-01 Voice: 410-867-7424 Fax: 410-867-4203 *e-mail: adam@ino.com

To: chirodoc who wrote (2222)	2/2/1998 8:47:00 AM
From: Thai Chung	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4903

From WSJ: The Wall Street Journal -- February 2, 1998 Manager's Journal: A Judo Blow Against Microsoft By Carl Shapiro and Hal R. Varian A central principle of judo is to use your opponent's size and strength against him. This is what Netscape is attempting to do in its latest move against Microsoft in the browser wars. Netscape announced on Jan. 22 that it plans to make the source code of its next-generation browser, Communicator 5.0, freely available on the Internet. Netscape has not only matched Microsoft by starting to give away its browser, but has raised the stakes by allowing anyone with the requisite skills to extend, modify, customize and enhance the program. What does Netscape hope to gain from this ploy? Microsoft's strength flows from its dominance of the markets in operating systems and office applications. Consumers and businesses value a uniform operating environment, and Microsoft is more than happy to provide one. This desire for uniformity and compatibility generates "network externalities" that often lead to a winner-take-all market. Through a combination to hard work, clever marketing and luck, Microsoft ended up as the winner. But Microsoft's strength -- uniformity -- is also its weakness, one that Netscape hopes to exploit by providing the opposite: diversity. Within minutes of Netscape's announcement, computer science students here at Berkeley were exchanging e-mail about the features they wanted to add to the browser. Netscape and Microsoft had long been using these students as unpaid beta testers; now Netscape will use them as unpaid programmers, too. But it isn't just hackers that will take advantage of Netscape's move. Every company with an intranet can now build a browser fine-tuned to its own needs -- allowing, for example, direct communication with its existing, pre-Internet systems. In the volatile Internet environment, an application that can mutate rapidly -- like Communicator in the hands of thousands of programmers -- has a big competitive advantage over an application that changes only when its manufacturer issues a new release. Netscape's plan entails an organizational danger: All these customized versions of Communicator will be useful only if they remain compatible. Fragmentation and incompatibility are the pitfalls of diversity in the information economy, as users of the Unix operating system know all too well. To deal with this problem, Netscape is providing a Web site to help coordinate work on Communicator. The company also intends to incorporate the best of the modifications into certified and supported releases of the product. The Linux project shows that this model can work. Using a similar techniques for coordination, this loose alliance of programmers has managed to develop an entire operating system and a full set of applications. But how can Netscape stay in business if it gives away its core product? The answer is that the browser is no longer Netscape's core product. Last quarter it accounted for only 13% of Netscape's revenue, the rest coming from the sales of more specialized software and from advertiser-supported information services on its Web page. Giving away the browser could help Netscape build these other, more lucrative businesses. By playing a major role in coordinating the evolution of Communicator, Netscape will continue to maintain a major presence on the Internet, enabling it to keep potential users informed of its other products and services. By releasing the source code of its browser, Netscape has fortified itself again the Microsoft onslaught, giving customers a powerful reason to stick with Communicator in the face of Microsoft's relentless efforts to expand the distribution of Internet Explorer. Lost in the glare of the latest skirmish between Microsoft and the Justice Department, Netscape's move may have a far greater impact on consumers, and competition. Some see Netscape's move as an act of desperation, but we think it has a good chance of working. Netscape is giving its customers a fully customizable browser, something Microsoft will have a hard time matching. In judo the prize goes not to the biggest player, but to the one who is most nimble and has the best moves. Microsoft remains a formidable opponent, but Netscape just may earn a black belt. --- Mr. Shapiro and Mr. Varian are faculty members at the University of California's Haas School of Business in Berkeley. Their book on competitive strategy for the information economy will be published this summer by Harvard Business School Press.