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

To: Dermot Burke who wrote (2851)	4/21/1998 8:48:00 AM
From: Winter	Respond to of 4903

>>Probably true.But maybe 300mm in browser sales were grabbed before the freebie decision was implimented.<< And no doubt it felt good at the time to rake in the cash while they could. But I believe a longer term perspective would have convinced them to forgo the short-term gain to solidify market share and help them defend against the MS onslaught. Since they are giving away the browser now, I guess we are just discussing the timing of the change not whether or not it was a good idea.

To: Dermot Burke who wrote (2851)	4/21/1998 8:57:00 AM
From: Winter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4903

I floated an idea in another thread that was largely ignored - the availability of anti-advertising software for browsers and the possibility of it becoming more widely adopted with the publishing of the Netscape's source code. Right now it seems you have to pay for such anti-ad software addons and it looks a bit cumbersome to use (one implementation runs as a proxy server on your machine that you have to point to). With the Netscape source code being out there, I imagine the hacker community would love to stick it to advertisers by coming up with free patches or add-ons that would disable ads. Even some simply-minded ones that blocked certain well-known ad urls would work. The affect of widespread adoption of such would have a major impact on the whole web advertising paradigm, especially with web sites that generate the majority of their revenue that way. Obviously its not in Netscapes best interest either. From sec.yahoo.com (their 10K) RELIANCE ON WEBSITE REVENUES; UNCERTAIN ADOPTION OF WEB AS AN ADVERTISING MEDIUM Netscape Netcenter offers a variety of products and services including access to: news and information, Netcenter Commerce (where goods and services can be purchased), directories of interesting sites on the Internet, Netscape and third-party software, a variety of product and technical support information, and current news about Netscape and its products. <snip> Certain advertising filter software programs are available that limit or remove advertising from an Internet user's desktop. Such software, if generally adopted by users, may have a material adverse effect upon the viability of Web-based services on the Internet. As a result of these factors, Netscape may not sustain or increase its current Web-based service revenues. Failure to do so could materially adversely affect Netscape's business, operating results, or financial condition. <snip> -- Comments?