(Redirected from Netscape Communications Corporation)
'Netscape Communications' (formally known as 'Netscape Communications Corporation' and commonly known as 'Netscape'), is an
American computer services company, best known for its
web browser. The browser was once dominant in terms of
usage share, but lost most of its share to
Internet Explorer during the
first browser war. By the end of 2006, the usage share of Netscape browsers had fallen from over 85% in the mid 1990s, to less than 1%.
Netscape traded between 1995 to 2003, subsequently as a
subsidiary of
AOL LLC, however it has since become a
holding company, following Netscape's purchase by AOL in
1998. The brand is still extensively used by AOL, and some current services under the Netscape brand besides the web browser include a discount
Internet service provider and a popular
social news website.
History
Early years
The logo of Mosaic Communications Corporation and its browser
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[1] 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.)
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.
[2]
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 enables users to access and edit their files anywhere across a network, no matter what computer or operating system they happened to be using.
This did not escape the attention of
Microsoft, which viewed the commoditization of operating systems as a direct threat to its bottom line. It is alleged that several Microsoft executives visited the Netscape campus in June 1995 to propose dividing the market (although Microsoft denies this as it would have breached anti-trust laws), which would have allowed Microsoft to produce web browser software on
Windows while leaving other operating systems to Netscape.
[3] Netscape refused.
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.
[4] 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.
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.
Open sourcing
January 1998 was also the month that Netscape started the
open source Mozilla project. Netscape publicly released the
source code of Netscape Communicator 4.0 in the hopes that it would become a popular open source project. It placed this code under the
Netscape Public License, which was similar to the
GNU General Public License but allowed Netscape to continue to publish proprietary work containing the publicly released code. However, after having released the Communicator 4.0 code this way, Netscape proceeded to work on Communicator 4.5 which was focused on improving email and enterprise functionality.
It eventually became clear that the Communicator 4.0 browser was too difficult to develop, and open source development was halted on this codebase. Instead, the open source development shifted to a next generation browser built from scratch. Utilizing the newly built
Gecko layout engine, this browser had a much more modular architecture than Communicator 4.0 and was therefore easier to develop with a large number of programmers. It also included an XML user interface language named
XUL that allowed single development of a user interface that ran on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux.
The
United States Department of Justice filed an
antitrust case against Microsoft in May 1998. Netscape was not a plaintiff in the case, though its executives were subpoenaed and it contributed much material to the case, including the entire contents of the 'Bad Attitude' internal discussion forum.
[5]
In October 1998, Netscape acquired web directory site NewHoo for the sum of $1 million, renamed it the
Open Directory Project, and released its database under an
open content license.
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.
[6][7] 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, Netscape's server products and its Professional Services group became part of
iPlanet, a joint marketing and development alliance between AOL and
Sun Microsystems.
On
November 14 2000, AOL released
Netscape 6, based on the Mozilla 0.6 source code. (
version 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. A year later came
Netscape 7.0, based on the Mozilla 1.0 core.
Disbanding of Netscape
After the Microsoft antitrust case found that Microsoft held and had abused monopoly power, AOL filed suit against it for damages.
[8] This suit was settled in May 2003 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.
[9][10] This was considered to be the "death knell for Netscape."
On
July 15,
2003,
Time Warner (formerly AOL Time Warner) disbanded Netscape. Most of the programmers were laid-off, and the Netscape logo was removed from the building. However, the Netscape 7.2 web browser (developed in-house rather than with Netscape staff) was released by
AOL on
August 18,
2004.
[11]
Red Hat announced on
September 30,
2004 that it had acquired large portions of the Netscape Enterprise Suite and was planning to convert them into an open source product to be bundled with
Red Hat Enterprise Linux.
[1] On
June 1,
2005, Red Hat released
Fedora Directory Server.
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.
Netscape today
The current Netscape logo
Today, the Netscape brand name continues to be used extensively. The company once again has its own programming staff devoted to the development and support for the series of
web browsers.
[12] Additionally, Netscape also maintains the
Netscape.com portal, which is a popular social-news site, similar to
Digg, which was given a new look in
June 2006. AOL markets a
discount ISP service under the Netscape brand name.
Software
Main articles: Netscape (web browser)
Netscape Classic releases
Netscape Navigator (versions 1.0–4.08)
Netscape Navigator 4.08
Netscape Navigator was the name of Netscape's web browser from versions 1.0–4.8. The first beta release versions of the browser were released in 1994 and known as Mosaic and then Mosaic Netscape until a legal challenge from the
National Center for Supercomputing Applications (makers of
NCSA Mosaic), which many of Netscape's founders used to develop, led to the name Netscape Navigator. The company's name also changed from Mosaic Communications Corporation to Netscape Communications Corporation.
The browser was easily the most advanced available and was therefore an instant success, becoming market leader while still in beta. Netscape's feature-count and market share continued to grow rapidly after version 1.0 was released. Version 2.0 added a full mail reader called Netscape Mail, thus transforming Netscape from a mere web browser to an
Internet suite. During this period, the suite was called Netscape Navigator.
Version 3.0 of Netscape (the first beta was codenamed "Atlas") was the first to face any serious competition in the form of
Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0. Netscape, however, easily held off Microsoft's challenge and remained the number one browser for the time being.
Netscape Communicator (versions 4.0–4.8)
Netscape Communicator 4.61 for OS/2 Warp
Netscape 4 addressed the problem of Netscape Navigator being used as both the name of the suite and the browser contained within it by renaming the suite to Netscape Communicator.
After releasing 5 preview releases from 1996 - 1997, Netscape released the final version of Netscape Communicator in June 1997. This new version, more or less based on Netscape Navigator 3 Code, updated and added new features. The new suite was successful, despite increasing competition from Internet Explorer 4.0 (which had, at that time, a far better HTML engine) and problems with the outdated browser core. The Communicator suite was made up of Netscape Navigator,
Netscape Mail & Newsgroups, Netscape Address Book and
Netscape Composer (an HTML editor).
In October 1998 version 4.5 of Netscape Communicator was released. This new version featured various functionality improvements, especially in the
Mail and Newsgroups component, but did not update the browser core (which, in its functionality, was basically identical with version 4.08). Only one month later,
Netscape Communications Corporation was purchased by
AOL.
In January 1998
Netscape Communications Corporation announced that all future versions of their software would be free of charge and developed by an Open Source Community (
Mozilla).
Netscape Communicator 5.0 was announced (codenamed "Grommit"). However, there were significant delays to the release of Netscape's next major version and Communicator therefore aged badly over the many years it was still used. As a result of this, and a more advanced support of
HTML 4,
CSS,
DOM, and
ECMAScript by Internet Explorer starting with version 4, the more up-to-date Internet Explorer 5.0 became the market leader. In November 1998 work on Netscape 5.0 was cancelled in favor of developing a completely new program from scratch.
Mozilla-based releases
Netscape 6 (versions 6.0–6.2.3)
Netscape Navigator 6.1
In 1998, an informal group called the
Mozilla Organization was formed and largely funded by Netscape (the vast majority of programmers working on the code were paid by Netscape) to co-ordinate the development of Netscape 5 (codenamed "Gromit"), which would be based on the Communicator source code. However, the aging Communicator code proved difficult to work with and the decision was taken to scrap Netscape 5 and re-write the source code. The re-written source code was in the form of the
Mozilla web browser, which, with a few additions, Netscape 6 was based on.
This decision meant that Netscape's next major version was severely delayed. In the meantime, Netscape was taken over by AOL who, acting under pressure from the
Web Standards Project, forced its new division to release Netscape 6.0 in 2000. The suite again consisted of Netscape Navigator and the other Communicator components, with the addition of a built-in
AOL Instant Messenger client, Netscape Instant Messenger. However, it was clear that Netscape 6 was not yet ready for release and it flopped badly. It was based on Mozilla 0.6, which was not ready to be used by the general public yet due to many serious bugs that would cause it to crash often or render web pages slowly.
Later versions of Netscape 6 were much improved (especially 6.2.x was regarded as a good release), but the browser still struggled to make an impact on a disappointed community.
Netscape (versions 7.0–7.2)
Netscape 7.2
Netscape 7.0 (based on Mozilla 1.0.1) was released in August 2002 was a direct continuation of Netscape 6 with very similar components. It picked up a few users, but was still very much a minority browser. It did, however, come with the popular
Radio@Netscape internet radio client. AOL had decided to deactivate Mozilla's popup-blocker functionality in Netscape 7.0, which created an outrage in the community. AOL learned the lesson for Netscape 7.01 and allowed Netscape to reinstate the popup-blocker. Netscape also introduced a new AOL-free-version (without the usual AOL addons) of the browser suite. Netscape 7.1 (codenamed "Buffy" and based on Mozilla 1.4) was released in June 2003.
In 2003, AOL closed down its Netscape division and laid-off or re-assigned all of Netscape's employees. Mozilla.org continued, however, as the independent
Mozilla Foundation, taking on many of Netscape's ex-employees. AOL continued to develop Netscape in-house, but, due to there being no staff committed to it, improvements were minimal.
One year later, in August 2004, the last version based on Mozilla was released: Netscape 7.2, based on Mozilla 1.7.2.
After an official
poll posted on Netscape's community support board in late
2006, speculation has arisen of the Netscape 7 series of suites being fully supported and updated by Netscape's in-house development team once more, including major bug fixes and security issues.
[13][14][15].
Mozilla Firefox-based releases
Netscape Browser (version 8.0-8.1.3)
Netscape Browser 8.1.3
Between
2005 and
2007, Netscape's releases became known as ''Netscape Browser''. AOL chose to base Netscape Browser on the relatively successful
Mozilla Firefox, a re-written version of Mozilla produced by the Mozilla Foundation. This release is not a full Internet suite as before, but is solely a web browser. Other controversial decisions include the browser's being made only for
Microsoft Windows (as of now) and its featuring both the
Gecko rendering engine of previous releases and the
Trident engine used in Internet Explorer.
AOL's acquisition of Netscape years ago made it less of a surprise when the company laid off the Netscape team and outsourced development to
Mercurial Communications.
Netscape Browser 8.1.3 was released on
April 2,
2007, and included general bug fixes identified in versions 8.0-8.1.2
[16] [17]
Netscape Navigator (version 9.0)
Netscape Navigator 9.0 beta 1
Netscape confirmed on
23 January 2007 that Netscape Browser versions 8.0-8.1.2 was to be succeeded by a new stand-alone browser release,
Netscape Navigator 9. Its features were said to include
newsfeed support and become more integrated with the Netscape.com internet portal
[18], alongside more enhanced methods of discussion, submission and voting on web pages
[19]. It also sees the browser return to multi-platform support across
Windows,
Linux and
Mac OS X.
[20] Like Netscape version 8.x, the new release was be based upon the popular
Mozilla Firefox (version 2.0), and supposedly have full support of all Firefox
add-ons and
plugins, some of which Netscape is already providing.
[21]. Also for the first time since
2004, the browser was produced in-house with its own programming staff.
[22]
A beta of the program was first released on
5 June 2007[23].
Mozilla Thunderbird-based releases
Netscape Mercury
Main articles: Netscape Mercury
On
11 June 2007, Netscape announced Netscape Mercury, a stand-alone Email / News Client which will accompany Navigator 9, based on
Mozilla Thunderbird[24].
Product list
Installation disk of Netscape 2.0
Netscape's initial product line consisted of:
★
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:
★ 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,
VoIP, 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
★
Radio@Netscape and
Radio@Netscape Plus
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.
[2] 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.
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,
IBM 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 System, formerly under the
Sun ONE branding.
Multi-platform support has been confirmed for the release of the
Netscape Navigator 9 series of browsers.
[25]
Netscape Internet Service
Netscape ISP Logo
runs a discount dial-up
Internet service provider under the Netscape brand. The low-cost ISP was officially launched on January 8, 2004
[3]. Its main competitor is
NetZero.
Netscape ISP's advertising is generally aimed at a younger demographic, e.g.,
college students, and people just out of school, as an affordable way to gain access to the Internet.
Netscape ISP is a very basic Internet service; a simple dial-up connection with very few extra features such as one e-mail address, and pop up blocker. Additional features can be added to the service but at extra-cost, such as:
[4][5]:
★ PC Anti-virus Protection
★ Advanced Spam Blocker
★ E-mail VirusScan
★ Extra E-mail Storage
★ Extra E-mail Addresses
★ Web Accelerator
Members of Netscape ISP can get customer support by visiting their
Live Chat support
Netscape.com
Netscape.com, after being purchased by AOL, was a generic
web portal that included a
search engine and member features such as
webmail, and
My Netscape that were run using
AOL's
screen name service.
In
June 2006, Netscape redesigned their website to a totally different format; a
social news aggregator, similar to
Digg. The Chief Architect of the site was
Brian Alvey[6] and the lead developer of the site was
Alex Rudloff [7]. It was maintained by
Weblogs, Inc. CEO
Jason Calacanis until he left AOL in November of 2006. The current director is
Tom Drapeau. Users can vote for which stories are to be included on the front page, and may comment on them as well. Netscape's market share had been declining for over a year at the time of the change-over
[8].
A version of the old Nestcape portal, complete with daily news and feature updates, remains up at
Compuserve.com, the Web site for
Compuserve Internet service.
Anchors
Netscape.com has several "anchors", currently led by
James Marcus, who work on maintaining the site and featuring stories in the "anchor picks" box on the home page. This creates a slightly different environment from Digg, as Digg's homepage rankings are based solely on user votes, where Netscape's are based on both. The rest of the team includes
Eliot Phillips,
Alexia Prichard,
Dakota Smith and
Ryan Budke.
Scouts
Netscape also pays a small number of power users dubbed Scouts. This group is made up of
Weblogs, Inc. bloggers, Netscape power users and celebrities; One such celebrity is
Wil Wheaton. (Other scouts include up and coming bloggers such as
Angry Ken, Henry Wang,
TweekerChick and Corey Spring). These users were formerly called Navigators, until the relaunch of the Netscape Navigator browser at which point the name was changed to avoid confusion. Their primary function is to keep things running as smoothly as possible.
Criticisms
The current version of Netscape.com was released to mixed reactions. Some users really like that users had more participation ability, while others found the pages to be harder to navigate and not as structured. In fact, soon after the release of the new site, a story entitled "Netscape's Blunder" was the top rated story.
[26]
AOL Netscape
In
August 2007, a dual-branded AOL Netscape portal was launched at
netscape.aol.com, similar to that of the previous Netscape.com portal prior to the 2006 re-launch, and based upon AOL.com. It has been confirmed the new portal will not replace the existing social news system.
[27]
Open Directory Project
Main articles: Open Directory Project
The 'Open Directory Project' ('ODP'), also known as 'dmoz' (from 'd'irectory.'moz'illa.org, its original
domain name), is a multilingual
open content directory of
World Wide Web links owned by Netscape that is constructed and maintained by a
community of
volunteer editors.
See also
★
Mozilla
★
The Book of Mozilla
★
Code Rush, a 1998 documentary about Netscape engineers.
★
Radio@Netscape
References
1. Mosaic Communications changes name to "Netscape Communications Corporation"
2. Going Public as Netscape Did, before making a dime in profits David Sheff
3. Government alleges illegal campaign by Microsoft
4. Memoirs from the Browser Wars
5. Microsoft Subpoenas Bad Attitude
6. netscape and aol.
7. netscape and aol/time warner: part two.
8. AOL's Netscape Sues Microsoft
9. Microsoft to pay AOL 0 Million
10. Is this the end of Netscape?
11. Netscape Internet Software Updated
12. UFAQ.org - "Announcing Netscape 9" by Jay Garcia Retrieved on 2007-02-05
13. Netscape Community Announcement - Netscape 7.2 Retrieved on 2007-02-08
14. Netscape Community poll - Should Netscape continue to update 7.2? Retrieved on 2007-02-08
15. Mozillazine - Netscape 9 announced Retrieved on 2007-02-08
16. Netscape Community - Netscape 8.1.3 Retrieved on 2007-02-08
17. Netscape Community - Netscape 8.1.3 released Retrieved on 2007-04-02
18. Netscape 9.0 confirmed on Netscape's community support board Retrieved on 2007-01-24
19. Netscape 9 - 20 February Announcement Retrieved on 2007-02-20
20. Netscape 9.0 30- Jan 07 announcement Retrieved on 2007-01-30
21. Netscape 9 - 6 February 2007 announcement Retrieved on 2007-02-06
22. Netscape announces cross-platform Netscape 9 to be developed in-house - Mozillazine Retrieved on 2007-02-05
23. Netscape 9.0b1 released Retrieved on 06-05-2007
24. Netscape Mercury in progress Retrieved on 06-011-2007
25. 'See reference 15'
26. Netscape Community Backlash
27. New Netscape Portal - Netscape Community Retrieved on 2007-08-14
External links
★
Netscape.com
★
Netscape Browser
★
Netscape ISP home page
★
Netscape ISP customer support
★
Netscape ISP Sign Up page
★
Netscape Community
★
Netscape Browser Archive
★
The Netscape Unofficial FAQ
★
Origin of a Browser: The Netscape Museum
★
Welcome to Mosaic Communications Corporation!
★
A list of key events in Netscape's history
★
Remembering Netscape: The Birth of the Web
★
Netscape Version Guide
★
''Book of Mozilla'', a portal for former Netscape employees
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