Netscape Communications Corporation

Netscape Communications Corporation was the publisher of the Netscape web browsers as well as many other internet and intranet client and server software products.

Acquisition by America Online

America Online (AOL) on November 24, 1998 announced it would acquire Netscape Communications in a tax-free stock-swap valued at US$4.2 billion at the time of the announcement. This merger was ridiculed by many who believed that the two corporate cultures could not possibly mesh; one of its most prominent critics was longtime Netscape developer Jamie Zawinski. http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/aol.html http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/aoltw.html The acquisition was seen as a way for AOL to gain a bargaining chip against Microsoft, to let it become less dependent on the Internet Explorer web browser. Others believed that AOL was interested in Netcenter, or Netscape's web properties, which drew some of the highest traffic worldwide. Eventually, the majority of Netscape's server products were spun off to form a iPlanet Inc. a joint-venture between AOL and Sun Microsystems.

Related Topics:
America Online - November 24 - 1998 - Jamie Zawinski - Netcenter - IPlanet Inc. - Sun Microsystems

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On November 14 2000, AOL released Netscape 6, based on the Mozilla 0.6 source code. (Version number 5 was skipped.) Unfortunately, Mozilla 0.6 was far from being stable yet, and so the effect of Netscape 6 was to further drive people away from the Netscape brand. It was not until August 2001 that Netscape 6.1 appeared, based on Mozilla 0.9.2 which was significantly more robust; and then a year later came Netscape 7.0 (which was released a few days after a Netscape Communicator 4.8 maintenance release, thereby illustrating how the efforts of the Netscape developers were still being divided).

Related Topics:
November 14 - 2000

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After the Microsoft antitrust case found Microsoft guilty of having abused its monopoly power, AOL filed suit against it for damages. http://news.com.com/2100-1001-820227.html This suit was settled in May 2001 when Microsoft paid US$750 million to AOL and agreed to share some technologies, including granting AOL a license to use and distribute Internet Explorer royalty-free for seven years. http://news.com.com/2100-1032-1011296.html http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-1011356.html This was considered to be the "death knell for Netscape."

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On July 15, 2003, Time Warner (formerly AOL Time Warner, formerly AOL) disbanded Netscape. Most of the programmers were laid-off, and the Netscape logo was removed from the building. Netscape exists now only as a brand name under which AOL offers a low cost ISP. https://register.isp.netscape.com/ However, the Netscape 7.2 web browser, likely engineered by a contracted third-party vendor, was released by AOL on August 18, 2004. http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/news_story.php?id=62001

Related Topics:
July 15 - 2003 - Time Warner - ISP - AOL - August 18 - 2004

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Red Hat announced on September 30, 2004 that it had acquired large portions of the Netscape Enterprise Suite and is planning to convert them into an open source product to be bundled with Red Hat Enterprise Linux. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/30/169253. On June 1, 2005, Red Hat released Fedora Directory Server.

Related Topics:
Red Hat - September 30 - 2004 - Netscape Enterprise Suite - Red Hat Enterprise Linux - June 1 - 2005 - Fedora Directory Server

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On October 12, 2004, the popular developer website Netscape DevEdge was shut down by AOL. DevEdge was an important resource for Internet-related technologies, maintaining definitive documentation on the Netscape browser, documentation on associated technologies like HTML and JavaScript, and popular articles written by industry and technology leaders such as Danny Goodman. Some content from DevEdge has been republished at the Mozilla website.

Related Topics:
October 12 - 2004 - Danny Goodman - Mozilla

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Currently, AOL has hired the Canadian company Mercurial Communications to develop Netscape Browser 8, based on Mozilla Firefox. To accompany the new browser, a brand new design of the Netscape.com website was introduced on February 17, 2005 (http://netcenter.netscape.com), which is still in the beta stage. Netscape Browser 8's first public beta was originally also scheduled for this date but, due to unfixed bugs, its release was delayed to March 3, 2005. Netscape Browser 8 was finally released in non beta form on May 19, 2005.

Related Topics:
Netscape Browser - Mozilla Firefox - February 17 - 2005 - March 3 - May 19

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