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.

Early years

The company was founded as Mosaic Communications Corporation on April 4, 1994 by Marc Andreessen and Jim Clark, and was the first company to attempt to capitalize on the nascent World Wide Web. It released a web browser called Mosaic Netscape 0.9 on October 13, 1994. This browser was subsequently renamed Netscape Navigator, and the company took on the 'Netscape' name on November 14, 1994 http://www.holgermetzger.de/netscape/NetscapeCommunicationsNewsRelease.htm to avoid trademark ownership problems with NCSA, where the initial Netscape employees had previously created the NCSA Mosaic web browser. (The Mosaic Netscape web browser shared no code with NCSA Mosaic.)

Related Topics:
April 4 - 1994 - Marc Andreessen - Jim Clark - World Wide Web - October 13 - Netscape Navigator - November 14 - NCSA - NCSA Mosaic

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Netscape had a successful IPO on August 9, 1995. The stock was to be offered at $14 per share; a last-minute decision doubled the initial offering to $28 per share; the stock's value reached $75 on the first day of trading, which was nearly a record for a stock's first-day gain. The company's revenues doubled every quarter in 1995 http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.08/loudcloud.html?pg=4.

Related Topics:
IPO - August 9 - 1995

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One of Netscape's stated goals was to "level the playing field" among operating systems by providing a consistent web browsing experience across them. The Netscape web browser interface was identical on any computer. Netscape later experimented with prototypes of a web-based system which would allow a user to access and edit his files anywhere across a network, no matter what computer or operating system he happened to be using.

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This did not escape the attention of Microsoft, which viewed the commoditization of operating systems as a direct threat to its bottom line. Several Microsoft executives are reported to have visited the Netscape campus in June 1995 to propose dividing the market, which would have allowed Microsoft to produce web browser software on Windows while leaving other operating systems to Netscape. http://www.pub.umich.edu/daily/1998/oct/10-20-98/news/news14.html Netscape refused.

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Microsoft released version 1.0 of Internet Explorer as a part of the Windows 95 Plus Pack add-on. According to former Spyglass developer Eric Sink, Internet Explorer was based not on NCSA Mosaic as commonly believed, but on a version of Mosaic developed at Spyglass. http://biztech.ericsink.com/Browser_Wars.html Microsoft quickly released several successive versions of Internet Explorer, bundling them with Windows, never charging for them, financing their development and marketing with revenues from other areas of the company. This period of time became known as the browser wars, in which Netscape Communicator and Internet Explorer added many new features (not always working correctly) and went through many version numbers (not always in a logical fashion) in attempts to outdo each other. But Internet Explorer had the upper hand, as the amount of manpower and capital dedicated to it eventually surpassed the resources available in Netscape's entire business. By version 3.0, IE was roughly a feature-for-feature equivalent of Netscape Communicator, and by version 4.0, it was generally considered to be more stable. Microsoft also targeted other Netscape products with free workalikes, such as the Internet Information Server (IIS), a web server which was bundled with Windows NT.

Related Topics:
Internet Explorer - Spyglass - Browser wars - Internet Information Server

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Netscape could not compete with this strategy. Meanwhile, it faced increasing criticism for the bugs in its products; critics claimed that the company suffered from 'featuritis' – putting a higher priority on adding new features than on making them work properly. The tide of public opinion, having once lauded Netscape as the David to Microsoft's Goliath, steadily turned negative, especially when Netscape experienced its first bad quarter at the end of 1997 and underwent a large round of layoffs in January 1998.

Related Topics:
David - Goliath

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