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

To: damniseedemons who wrote (22291)	12/26/1998 1:22:00 AM
From: Henry D	Respond to of 24154

when's the next 2 for 1 split??? any guesses???

To: damniseedemons who wrote (22291)	12/26/1998 6:12:00 PM
From: Charles Hughes	Respond to of 24154

I don't know what the heck is the problem here remembering what Netscape innovated. Netscape, along with others, drove the development of: 1. The useable browser. 2. Javascript. 3. Web servers with professional features. 4. HTML 1.x, 2 and 3. 5. Image handling. 6. A generic plugin API for third party additions for browsers. 7. Quality database connections. 8. A reasonably stable Java platform. 9. Many other small but needed features. Now, it's true that all along other companies were working on some of these features. It's true that most of the base concepts came from elsewhere, like W3 and SGML. It's true that it all rests on the donated work of Internet volunteers and scientists and the military over a period of 2 decades. It's true that now one might want to use some other server system than theirs. But Netscape was the outfit that drove the Web into significant existence. Where there were no standards, they de facto created them. When more language features were needed they invented them. Where easy access to generic browsers was needed, they provided it, giving ISPs something to sell. When Al Gore needed convincing to support infrastructure, they convinced him. They opened up the entire business. They came up with a C++ API class library for 3rd parties to tie new software into the browser. They did this in a way that let other people participate, not as a proprietary mess, and that is what caused the explosion of participation. They served as a focus for everything that was going on. They did this well enough for products like Website to use them as a model to improve on, thus serving as the basis for the innovation of others. They made it all happen, under the gun. They did this with Microsoft trying every second of every day to destroy them. Without their great push behind it, MSFT would have succeeded in killing the larger open Web. That's what they did. Part innovation, part accident, part grit. Part incompetence, even, but they kept on going. That's how innovation works. They saw the wave created by years of volunteer effort, they powered into it, they put an engine into the effort. After that, the rest of us mostly road their wake for several years. MSFT, on the other hand, did what it always does - waited for somebody else to invent a business and a technology, then either try to kill it (Netbuei networks, incompatibilities, proprietary MSN) or if that fails or seems less profitable try to take it over via brute market and monopoly power, using imitative or proprietary products (IE, DDE->OLE->COM->DCOM->Active Crapola). So, now Netscape will be owned by AOL. That probably means they are no longer a locus of change. No more innovations. A real pity, except for the fact that the employees will get a big payday. However, they seemed to have run out of steam anyway (Too big, too fast, perhaps.) The real question is, who will stand up to MSFT now? Will the antitrust battle be won by the government, but the war lost, due to there being no alternative company or organization to drive events and represent the public interest in the marketplace? Looking at the drivel that is on the Web today, I am afraid this is possible, if not inevitable. Netscape, the old Netscape, will be missed. And we all will need to fight that fight every day from now on. Yours, Chaz (FWIW, I am constantly astonished that people can't remember more than 6 months into the past. Maybe this is the result of all the spinning of stories and commercial lies. Even if you know what happened, you eventually succumb to the deliberate confusion, unless you constantly battle the effect.)