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

To: Winter who wrote (2850)	4/21/1998 8:44:00 AM
From: Dermot Burke	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4903

Probably true.But maybe 300mm in browser sales were grabbed before the freebie decision was implimented.

To: Winter who wrote (2850)	4/21/1998 2:11:00 PM
From: Keith Hankin	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4903

To that end, browser market share is crucial. Therefore they should have been giving their browser away all along IMO, As soon as MS announced they were serious about getting into the browser game, Netscape should have started giving away the browser. First you say that NSCP should have been giving the browser away from the beginning. Then you say they should have been giving it away as soon as MS announced they were entering the browser game. Which do you believe is correct? Certainly, giving away the browser away from the start deals with the problem up-front. However, I believe that it unnecessarily removes a very significant revenue stream that was very useful for NSCP to expand. I believe that it was unnecessary to offer it for free from the start, but should have been given for free once MSFT had a competitive product (3.0). Actually, the key is not giving it away for free generally, but getting bundling deals with the top computer vendors (Compaq, Dell, IBM, etc.) and the top Internet providers (AOL, Compuserve, etc.), by providing it to them for free, if necessary. Then when MSFT included the browser in the OS, NSCP would already have its position.