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.

Products

Netscape's initial product line consisted of:

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• Netscape Navigator web browser for Windows, Macintosh, Unix, and Linux
• Netsite Communications web server, with a web-based configuration interface
• Netsite Commerce web server, simply the Communications server with SSL (https) added
• Netscape Proxy Server

Later Netscape products included:

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• Netscape Personal Edition (the browser along with PPP software and an account creation wizard to sign up with an ISP)
• Netscape Communicator (a suite which included Navigator along with tools for mail, news, calendar, and composing web pages, and was bundled with AOL Instant Messenger and RealAudio)
• Netscape FastTrack and Enterprise web servers
• Netscape Collabra Server, a NNTP news server acquired in a purchase of Collabra Software, Inc.
• Netscape Directory Server, an LDAP server
• Netscape Messaging Server, an IMAP and POP mail server
• Netscape Certificate Server, for issuing SSL certificates
• Netscape Calendar Server, for group scheduling
• Netscape Compass Server, a search engine and spider
• Netscape Application Server, for designing web applications
• Netscape Publishing System, for running a commercial site with news articles and charging users per access
• Netscape Xpert Servers
• ECxpert - a server for EDI message exchange
• SellerXpert - B to B Commerce Engine
• BuyerXpert - eProcurement Engine
• BillerXpert - Online Bill Paying Engine
• TradingXpert - HTML EDI transaction frontend
• CommerceXpert - Online Retail Store engine

Netscape created the JavaScript web page scripting language. It also pioneered the development of "push technology," which effectively allowed web sites to send regular updates of information (weather, stock updates, package tracking, etc.) directly to a user's desktop (aka "webtop"); Netscape's implementation of this was named Netcaster. http://www.catdancers.com/webmags/webrevu/1997/04_18/developers/04_18_97_2.html Unfortunately, businesses quickly recognized the use of push technology to deliver ads to users, and annoyed users turned off the feature, so Netcaster was short-lived.

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Netscape was notable for its cross-platform efforts. Its client software continued to be made available for Windows (3.1, 95, 98, NT), Macintosh, Linux, OS/2, BeOS, and many versions of Unix including DEC, Sun Solaris, BSDI, IRIX, AIX, and HP-UX. Its server software generally was only available for Unix and Windows NT, though some of its servers were made available on Linux, and a version of Netscape FastTrack Server was made available for Windows 95/98. Today, most of Netscape's server offerings live on as the Sun Java Enterprise System.

Related Topics:
Cross-platform - 3.1 - 95 - 98 - NT - OS/2 - BeOS - DEC - Sun Solaris - BSDI - IRIX - AIX - HP-UX - Sun Java Enterprise System

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