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Technology Stocks : MSFT Internet Explorer vs. NSCP Navigator -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bearded One who wrote (18878)	5/3/1998 4:52:00 PM
From: Guardian	Respond to of 24154

Enjoy this satirical news piece: salonmagazine.com

To: Bearded One who wrote (18878)	5/4/1998 1:37:00 PM
From: Reginald Middleton	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

<Look at it this way-- Netscape so far has made a lot of money on stuff other than their browser. They made those sales in part because of the ubiquity of their browser. I believe that's the general argument.> That is not a strong argument. NSCP did not make a lot of money, they grew revenues quickly for a quick period, which were funded by hyper-investment, thereby leaving little or no profit. The products which brought that revenue growth had no real commercial competition. Now those products are no longer the market leader and have been rendered to commodity status. They have altered thier business model to a totally unproven, very thin margin status (the web site stuff), which happens to be rife with competition itself. Thus far, NSCP has not clearly articulated a cogent case of a profitable future.

To: Bearded One who wrote (18878)	5/4/1998 11:38:00 PM
From: Mark Marcellus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24154

<< <<How will Netscape make money doing this?>> You could ask that of Microsoft :). Look at it this way-- Netscape so far has made a lot of money on stuff other than their browser. They made those sales in part because of the ubiquity of their browser. I believe that's the general argument.>> Bearded One, thanks for your response to my posting over on the Netscape board. I followed you over here because it seems to be a better place to discuss the questions I was raising. Re your response to Gerald's question, I think there's a huge quantitative difference between MSFT's situation vs. NSCP's. By giving away their browser for free, Microsoft has put a barbed wire fence across the beachhead that Netscape had established in their attempt to wrest control of the OS from Microsoft. The outcome is that Netscape gets to give away their browser and, with luck, leverage it to provide them access to some niche markets. Microsoft gets to continue licensing their OS to most of the known world, and Microfoft's revenue stream continues unscathed. Put in "Gorilla Game" terms Microsoft remains a Gorilla and Netscape has been relegated to permanent Chimp status, at least in this arena. I still consider the decision to open up the source code to be, at the least, an act of desperation. OTOH, during a paradigm shift the new paradigm will appear stupid to most observers. But if Netscape is intent on creating a new paradigm, I hope for their sake that they actually have a plan and aren't just making it up as they go along. FWIW, Mark