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Has AOL Ruined Netscape?
Anonymous Coward sent it: a scathing, three-page ZDNet article that claims the AOL purchase has turned Netscape into a shadow of its former self, that morale there is low and employee turnover is high, and that the company is now mired in bureaucracy, caught between Sun and AOL managements. The article was so sad, I almost wanted to cry by the time I got to the end.
Indeed, let's all have a moment of silence for the former Netscape....
=~(~~~~~~
combining this article with nomo zilla and nscp/aol by jwz the view of AOL one gets is all but pretty.
Sad to see that what was in many ways such a great company pushing the boundaries, staying on the forefront of the web & Internet revolution, has broken into pieces.
RIP?
I know AOL probably just wanted to brand name of Netscape because they are probably as tired of Microsoft as anyone else. So, with that in mind they merged with another Microsoft hater, Sun. And all the employees that were used to putting out good quality stuff were just being shuffled around like paper in a trashcan. I don't blame them for leaving.
I hope that AOL can pull this act together, and start shipping AOL disks with Netscape 5.0 as the browser as soon as it comes out. If they don't then we will know that they secretly bought out Netscape to crush its product and name and was paid to do it by Microsoft? Hmmm..
Good is never enough, when you dream of being great!
...IE has over taken Netscape for browswer supremacy.
Before you rail me for not trashing Microsoft...
If you dont care about your employer, why would you care about the product? The guys working on IE are probably happier than pigs in shit because a) they're winning, b) it pays well.
In Microsoft, respect is gained by getting stuff out the door, not by taking the time to do it properly.
Internet Explorer is not done properly. Standard support is poor, and undoubtedly the code implementing it is shoddy.
Security in IE has repeatedly been shown to be badly broken, and almost certainly not an integral part of the design.
The idea that digital signatures can protect a user from malicious code is ludicrous.
Interestingly, my browser (Netscape 4.61) crashed on the third page of the report - not once or twice, but four times. Guess it just didn't want to read about the slow demise of its parent company :)
Cheers,
GC
Have any of you considered the damage inflicted on Netscape by Apache? Maybe they were making a few bucks on Navigator, but they charge thousands of $$$ for their servers, and their market share there is 7.73 to Apache's 53.59. Three years ago they were pretty close.
Netscape Communications, Inc. announced 1999-11-09 that its much anticipated Netscape Navigator 5.0 will be available for trial later this month, the final version coming in February of 2000. With a beta version of Internet Explorer 5.5 coming soon, what will happen to Netscape? Is it too late? Is it the end of Netscape and esentially the browser wars? While we all may appreciate the concept of not having to deal with making a site compatible with both browsers, is it truly worth it? Without competition will IE become worse? Or will
someone create a new and much more powerful browser (Opera?) Story taken from here!
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Movie News - "Entertainment news, bitch!"
Steve Case must have been smoking something to think Netcenter was worth aquiring. "Portals" of that type are a joke. I'd be shocked if even 5 percent of the "hits" Netcenter get are on purpose. The only reason to go there at all is to DL a new version of their browser. The rest are all just people who probably havent figured out you can just type in the address of the search engine you want, much less how to change their homepage. You dont believe me try taking a few help desk calls one day. I've listened to one tech trying to explain scroll bars to a user. :)
Not to mention Netcenter is just about the ugliest Portal site I've seen and their web mail the slowest I've had the misfortune of using.
Mergers are never pretty, especially for the employees of the company being bought out. AOL really bought Netscape only for their prized possessions, and their fuzzy alliance with Sun was to reap as much as they could between the two companies.
Unfortunately, AOL was too fast to try an assimilate Netscape into its own corporate family. From experience, that is a trying time for any employee. Priorities change, the work environment changes and there is always the threat that you might become a statistic in the merger ("here is your pink slip").
It remains to been seen if AOL's approach in acquiring Netscape will hurt AOL in the long run.
What matters to me in most Internet users is how they implement standards. they can add tons of URLs back to it AOL's domain, all kinds of 'paper clip inspired' interface kludge, that all ok
Fast, Faster, Fastest, Stable and Standards compliant. These other things that will return Netscape back to prominence on the desktop.
You'll never see a more "dumb" company. They bought netscape just to take what they want from it. AOL is not a software company. And what about SUN? Well I counted them out when JAVA didn't deliver all the promises. Netscape was the only one that drove JAVA along. For their own company's sake, I hope they realize just how important the netscape browser really is before it's too late.
"If a show of teeth is not enough, bite
AOL's handling of Netscape is typical of any quick merger; by exploiting the track record of a smaller company's "cutting-edge" product, a larger interest will generally view their latest "partner" as a commodity. Apart from its browser, Netscape was most likely purchased in order to serve as part of AOL's research department. The extra cache of their trademark and logo, with Marc Andreesen's press coverage were lucky accidents which helped to sweeten the deal.
Personally, I am tired of hearing sob stories about Netscape. Why exactly should I feel badly for the employees that churned out crappy code, wouldn't return my calls when I was actively trying to purchase their product, and gave me hideous tech support afterwards?
People talk of Netscape as if it were some sort of fallen hero, but the fact is that Netscape is the reason we have never had a standards compliant browser available, ever. Navigator 1.0 added a bunch of crap without being compliant and it went downhill from there. And don't get me started on the bugs in their code.
In many ways, AOL got suckered by this deal. They should remember next time they are considering buying a software company to look at the code first.
The Mozilla project is the only thing that they have done right. I just hope it isn't too late for it to matter.
Woogie
Is there any hard evidence to show that IE 5.5 or 6.0 will be more featureful than Mozilla 5?
It's worth noting that IE is no longer in a frantic development mode, since it has performed its function, which was to grab the "market".
along.
That's why AOL bought them out in the first place, cause they were struggling.
Netscape prolly had low moral in the first place. How else can you explain Netscape 4.x?
did they ship an AOL 5.0 CD with IE on it?
The most interesting thing about this article, I thought, was how little of it applies to Mozilla.
Post jwz, it seems that morale at Mozilla has just been getting better and better. Developer turnover appears to be very low -- the same names are still appearing week after week in the status reports as 12 months ago. There's now a real confidence and enthusiasm that they are on a realistic timetable to deliver a world beating product -- and soon. Mozilla's culture is alive and well.
Yeah, it sounds from this article as if the rest of Netscape has taken a beating. Sic transit gloria mundi.
But as a consumer brand Netscape is defined by the browser. With Communicator 2000 in the next couple of months also including some of the goodies AOL has been keeping on its secret list, the Netscape brand is going to be back with a bang.
Are you talking about My Netscape? I happen to think that it is quite excellent, and I have all my fav channels (slashdot, freshmeat, mozilla.org, segfault, linuxgames, etc etc) registered. The free email netscape.net is also pretty nice.
I'm not complaining at all.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
It's usually top management and the visionaries who get shaken out first, which of course makes the culture clash even worse.
I've been through this as an employee and it is a miserable event, maybe taking 18-24 months to settle down for those who ride it out. Not a fun time.
Usually what ends up happening is that the smaller aquired company ends up being totally assimilated into the culture of the larger aquiring company.
Everytime I go to the home.netscape.com web site I get pounded by annoying popup ads for stupid products that I don't want or don't tend to buy. Do you really think i'm going to "get AOL 5.0!" for linux? This is the same way with aol.com (yes i've been to the web site) more annoying popup ads in the same format as the Netscape ones. There were no popup ads on Netscape before the AOL merger. So it brings me to the question why did AOL buy Netscape, certainly not for its browser capabilities.. America Online software uses Internet Explorer. The only way AOL has helped/not helped netscape was to put ads on there web site, include there lame software into netscape, and not use there browser.
Netscape (the company) is dying - not just because of the corporate clash with AOL, but because they just don't have the technology.
The shipping Navigator is second rate compared to IE5, and who uses a Netscape server these days? For webservers, it's IIS vs Apache, and for application servers, the Netscape one has such a bad reputation that people are dumping it for anything else.
There is still the Netscape name, though, and that is worth a huge amount. Everybody has heard of Netscape, if only they could find a way to use that!
AOL should spin an E-Technology company off and give it the Netscape name - they would make billions! The value of AOL stock has nothing to do with Netscape, but if there was a relaunch of Netscape, with some valid technology it would rock - hell, they could sell support for Apache or something.
Forget this stuipid I-Planet thing. When did you ever hear anyone from Sun talking about that?
The game isn't over for Netscape, not by a long way, but I think it's future lies in technology, not services & portals.
--Donate food by clicking: www.thehungersite.com
The way I see the situation is that AOL really has no competition anymore in thier market. Remember Prodigy? What about Compuserve? oops, AOL owned now too. When you get right down to it, there isn't much out there other that AOL for some people. I remember when a 2400BPs AOL connection was the ONLY way for 100 miles to get online. Luckaly all that has changed and I have a computer now with a LAN connection to the internet through my college. But looking back at that time you could say that AOL was really bringing the internet to the people. Now, they didn't do it very well, and they CERTINLY paid for all of it through the constant advertizing. Now here comes this Netscape thing. Why? It seemed to me like AOL had everything going for it. Internet for the masses, OK, maybe some competition with webTV. It just didn't make any sense, and it still dosen't. I think that is why it didn't work. If AOL had some heavy competition from someone like Compuserve, then this would be a super stratigic move to strike against them. Probably company policies would be much more liberal, and everyone would have that "all fuzzy" feeling again. But, I would go as far to say that Netscape only had that feeling so long becuase it was "rage against the microsoft machine" time again. This is my point. Heavy competition = good working enviroment. Now, just for a second, I wanted to say something about microsoft. I think that these guys know they better get thier act together before the budding OS Linux comes a callin. I am running Win 2000 Beta, and you know what? It's nothing special. THAT in it's SELF is something to be supprised about. When was the last time you installed windows and Boom! Look at these channels! and boom! let's get your butt on the net! Win2000 didn't do any of that. Now, I have to assume that this is for Win2000, and NOT for Win Millenium (god I hate that name). But, I think that you can easily compare the two companies again. Microsoft = Machine, Linux = "Playful bunch of hackers that rage against it." Our heros in other words. It was the same battle in the browser wars, and as most people agree, Netscape LOST when IE4 came out. IE5 is really good stuff, no one can argue there, and Netscape 4.7 is crap, my opinion. Now we can look at the state that AOL is in, and ask ourselves, how much WORSE could microsoft get if they actually WIN against Linux, Macs, and other OSs? Now there's something to keep you techies up at night! (halloween music starts to play) The Frozen Viper
Is it any coincidence that ZDNet first comes up with an article announcing the death of Netscape's Navigator product line a few days ago, when Mozilla is well up and running, being possibily one of the best and most popular open-source projects ever, and now, just as conveniently, do another announcement reinforcing the notion that Netscape is dead?
Even if they substantiate their ideas, it should hardly be taken as reality with the track record that they have.
I have been watching the browser wars with much interest in the last several months. This is because I manage a project developing Java applet based database clients. I find both browsers very buggy and don't particularly like either. At the moment there just isn't anything better. Unfortunately because of the slow movement at Netscape for the last year, I see Microsoft gaining quickly in performance and features, and will probably blow by Netscape in the next year.
I see IE as the biggest threat to Linux . The reason for that is I see the browser becoming the desktop of the future. If IE is the only real browser left, then Micrsoft will have an even bigger and stronger monopoly on "desktops" than they have now. Microsoft isn't about to make a Linux version of IE. And with out a good browser, Linux will never make the transition to the desktop from the server. (Taking over the server market I see as just a matter of time.) Part of my assumption here is that the next killer App will be built on top of a browser. And if IE is the only serious browser in town, then Microsoft still holds all the cards, (and a couple of spare Ace's).
So from my point of view Mozilla is more important to linux than gnome/kde. Having said all of this, I have a question. A freind of mine and myself have talked about putting together a Mozilla distribution CD that contains "up to the week" source code, and the latest Milestone binaries currently found on mozilla.org. If you could buy one of these CDs, would you buy it? Would you report bugs or help with the Mozilla development? The only problem is that because of the rapid change in code and binaries, glass mastered CD's are out, it takes too long to have that done. And quick turn around for CD-R's is a bit higher per disk ($5-6). If you would buy and use a Mozilla distribution CD , mail me at Noble. Also we need people who can help set up the distribution for others OS's (Windows and Mac). I think we have Linux (and most unix) covered. E-mail me if you have time and knowledge to help with that.
But most importantly, help Mozilla anyway you can.
There's been quite a bit of speculating about netscape / mozilla here lately, much of which seems not to distinguish between the two.
Here's a thot tho... perhaps the death of the "commercial" netcape browser would benefit Mozilla?
Mozilla's not about to go away, it seems to be linux's best hope for a stable browser. I for one dont think linux stablility is nearly as important to the corporate netscape as it's windows performance is.
While overall I think the death of the official netscape browser would be a bad thing, would it's absense spur faster development of mozilla?
Second, Netscape's Unix-oriented tech culture started to hurt them when focus shifted towards usability features and cute UI flourishes in 1996. This was clear both on the browser side
and on the server side
I don't, however, fault them for their lousy tech support. I always found their server support group competent and responsive. It wasn't their fault that the product engineers would leave nasty bugs unfixed for release after release. That's why Apache's so compelling. And unless you had a special relationship with Microsoft, mediocre support like Netscape's was far above average.
AOL and Sun bought themselves a troubled company with a faltering product vision, and they knew it. That doesn't mean Mozilla's not great technology; it is. And it doesn't mean Netscape's server line isn't good. It is. That's why their mail, web, directory, cert and app servers are the basis for the iPlanet line. But both the client and server groups at Netscape were sorely lacking product architects with customer and market focus.
In this regard, the buyout offered Netscape a chance for redemption. If AOL can be made to care about Mozilla, their understanding of customer-focused (as opposed to geek-focused) usability can help it in ways XUL and XPFE as rallying slogans couldn't. And though Sun is still coming up to speed as a software vendor, they at least know how to listen to their customers in designing products in a way Netscape never did.
Folks,
If you think Microsoft smashing Netscape on the Windows platform is bad news, consider this possibility: Microsoft could easily direct its resources to create a Linux version (written under GPL guidelines) that will effectively finish off Netscape once and for all.
People conveniently forget that Microsoft has written a version of Internet Explorer that runs on the Sun Solaris operating system. It wouldn't take much work to convert that code into something that will run under Linux.
I mean, look at the Macintosh version of Internet Explorer. This version was literally written from scratch specifically for MacOS, and it's a very good and very FAST browser (it's certainly faster than Netscape Communicator 4.5 and later).
Because Internet Explorer for Linux will be open source, that bunch of 1,000 Linux programmers will be able to suggest changes that will improve it rapidly. Microsoft could make like quarterly releases of IE for Linux on CD-ROM (with all the suggestions and changes from Linux programmers).
Another thing people forget about is the MS-funded TransVirtual open-source Java project. Microsoft will likely incorporate TransVirtual Java code into Internet Explorer for Linux, and given TransVirtual's goal of full Sun Java 2.0 compliance, it'll be VERY interesting to see what Scott McNealy has to say if TransVirtual's open source Java VM and compiler is submitted to Sun for Sun compliance testing (especially given the fact that Sun is still reluctant to "open source" Java).
In short, don't just count out Microsoft just yet. They could literally turn the open source community upside down (and you wonder why Microsoft has opened a major development center in Mountain View, CA--the heart of Linux development).
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Netscape was a classic example of a naive, technology-driven start-up unable to cope with a leadership position and an excess of capital. AOL has simply saved the remaining Netscape employees from becoming unemployed and picked up a marginally well-trafficked Web site in the process. All the other problems are of Netscape's own making.
Specifically, they were never able to articulate a compelling technical vision. (c'mon, did *anyone* really think a Web browser was an operating system?) They never shipped a single product that was complete and of sufficient quality to warrant the market share they claimed or the price they charged. They never executed a successful acquisition strategy to do something constructive with the mass of cash they raised in their IPO.
So in the end, they ended up with a bunch of 3 year old technology, nothing new in the pipeline, no partners or acquisitions to take them in a new direction, and competitors that followed a logical path towards the commoditization of Netscape's entire product line.
Anyone with an ounce of business sense predicted in 1995 that Web browsers and Web servers would become integral parts of every operating system and ship on all new computers. Where did Netscape think they were going to make money? They can poor-mouth Microsoft all they want, but they simply put themselves out of business if for no other reason than a lack of vision.
Shut up and eat your vegetables!!!
No, Netscape lost its will to live when Microsoft decided that the web browser market would be a nice thing to own.
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This space unintentionally left unblank.
If you take a look, you'll see that IE for Solaris is essentially IE for Windows with Windows API libraries for Solaris. Not native code.
There are at least 10 sources to this article, but /none/ of them are identified in this story! It's a great story, but how can anyone believe it conclusively? ZDNet could have just as easily made the whole thing up!
Sure, it's believable, since AOL is evil incarnate [/dripping sarcasm] but I just have to say WTF Man, couldn't they have found one person in the rogues' gallery to own up to their statements? If they don't work for Netscape anymore, what the hell do they have to lose?
J.
damned vulpine http://sb.drtwister.com/
There's been alot of talk about "inevitable clash of cultures," regarding the AOL-Netscape story, but it didn't have to be that way--it wasn't inevitable. Steve Case and his cronies bear responsibility for driving off some of the best and brightest software developers in the country.
The reason I say this was avoidable is the way that AOL has managed acquiring Mirabilis and Nullsoft--essentially it has taken a "hands off" approach to both ICQ and Winamp/SHOUTcast. Someone there finally did the right thing and recognized that the users of those products were skeptical of AOL's influence and were worried that AOL ownership would alienate the user bases of each product.
Maybe the same micromanagement goes own behind the scenes at Mirabilis and Nullsoft but we don't hear about it, but I doubt that's the case. Each of these product lines retains a huge user following that's growing and both are pretty much devoid of AOL branding.
I wonder how different things would have turned out had AOL seen the catfight with M$ over instant messaging on the horizon. With everyone else out of the way, Billgatus of Borg's newest target for destruction is AOL in the IM arena, and ICQ and AIM are winning the day for AOL so far. If AOL had had the foresight to see a hurculean battle against Microsoft, maybe they would have given the resources and stability to leave Netscape alone and let it do what it did best--make browsers.
The big question that remains unsanswered is how does AOL's management feel about these departing people? I've always believed that you can replace machines or technology but you can't replace people. Talent, especially in today's hot economy, is a valuable asset that you can't squander or drive off. Okay so it's America and the victor gets the spoils and all that good BS...but I bet there's some relocated Netscape employees that are really making a difference with some other companies out there and are very satisfied with their new endeavors. Ex-Mozilla,org is a good place to find out where they are now.
There's been alot of talk about "inevitable clash of cultures," regarding the AOL-Netscape story, but it didn't have to be that way--it wasn't inevitable. Steve Case and his cronies bear responsibility for driving off some of the best and brightest software developers in the country.
The reason I say this was avoidable is the way that AOL has managed acquiring Mirabilis and Nullsoft--essentially it has taken a "hands off" approach to both ICQ and Winamp/SHOUTcast. Someone there finally did the right thing and recognized that the users of those products were skeptical of AOL's influence and were worried that AOL ownership would alienate the user bases of each product.
Maybe the same micromanagement goes own behind the scenes at Mirabilis and Nullsoft but we don't hear about it, but I doubt that's the case. Each of these product lines retains a huge user following that's growing and both are pretty much devoid of AOL branding.
I wonder how different things would have turned out had AOL seen the catfight with M$ over instant messaging on the horizon. With everyone else out of the way, Billgatus of Borg's newest target for destruction is AOL in the IM arena, and ICQ and AIM are winning the day for AOL so far. If AOL had had the foresight to see a hurculean battle against Microsoft, maybe they would have given the resources and stability to leave Netscape alone and let it do what it did best--make browsers.
The big question that remains unsanswered is how does AOL's management feel about these departing people? I've always believed that you can replace machines or technology but you can't replace people. Talent, especially in today's hot economy, is a valuable asset that you can't squander or drive off. Okay so it's America and the victor gets the spoils and all that good BS...but I bet there's some relocated Netscape employees that are really making a difference with some other companies out there and are very satisfied with their new endeavors. Ex-Mozilla.org is a good place to find out where they are now.
That one is easy. Stick to STANDARIZED HTML. I don't use ANY IE or Netscape extensions, it's just not worth it.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
They have a long record of being in bed with Microsoft. And they happen to run a very similar story about Sun's acquisition of Star Division, citing even more vague sources ("according to sources who claim they obtained their information from researchers with The Gartner Group" - isn't that nice?). So all of this seems just to be the campaign of the week, let's see what's to follow...
The Netscape we used to know and love is dead. It's just that simple. Steve Case is evil. A campaign is needed to stop this insanity. Steve makes nearly anything he touches wither and die. AOL is an evil cooperation. I presume Netscape, when restored to sort of normalness, will produce the same crap that AOL software does. I use it. (Not by choice, parents) It shuts down all of the time. I warn you all before upgrading when 5.X or 6.X comes out:It will be different, in an evil sort of way. In conclusion, the underdog known as netscape is dead, just another victim of cooperate greed.
Don't call my crazy, that's what they called me back in the home!
- Decent
- Open Source
- GPL'ed
How would this be anything other than good? Sure, it might contribute greatly to the death of Netscape, but who would care at that point? We'd have a decent open-source GPL'ed browser! Any problems (e.g. standards non-compliance, useless bloat) could be fixed, and the fixes could be distibuted thanks to the hypothetical licensing.The only real problem with your scenario is that it will never happen.
-- $SIGNATURE
The article is FUD.
Don't you find it curious that a whole series of stories like this have appeared just prior to the release of Netscape 5.0? Don't you find it strange that, according to the comments, 90% of Windows supporters want to see Netscape dead? Does it make sense? Why would the average Windows user care?
The story is part of Microsoft's ongoing campaign to kill Netscape and leave Microsoft with a near-monopoly in the web browser market. If Microsoft succeeds, then technological progress on the Net will slow to a crawl, because any innovation will have to come from Microsoft.
The Mozilla project is progressing nicely. Those who claim that Mozilla's progress has been slow are either showing a high degree of ignorance, or have an ulterior motive. Anyone who has been paying attention knows that, after giving up on trying to improve the original Netscape code, the Mozilla team has basically rewritten the browser from scratch in less than a year. It's an amazing accomplishment!
.... that Netscape is not Mozilla :)
:)
:)
Netscape is kindof irrelevant these days, they may be dead (and as far as I am concerned, they have been dead for a good 12 months), but mozilla is alive and well.
I tried out one of the nightly builds a couple of days ago, and it really has come a long way... even since milestone 9
at this rate, we should have a decent usable browser in early 2000
smash
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Besides wanting the Netcenter hits, AOL had a reason that made it imperative to buy Netscape:
AOL needed to ensure the survival of the Netscape browser.
AOL knows that Microsoft wants their business. They also know their history, for example, they know that Microsoft has used Windows in ways that tended to sabotage Microsoft's competitors (e.g. DR-DOS and WordPerfect).
Consider this quote from Bill Gates:
"You never sent me a response on the question of what things an app would do that would make it run with MSDOS and not run DR-DOS. Is there any version check or api they fail to have? Is ther feature they have that might get in our way? I am not looking for something they cant get around. I am looking for something their current binary fails on."
Or, consider this quote from Microsoft's Brad Chase:
"We will bind the shell to the Internet Explorer, so that running any other browser is a jolting experience."
If Netscape disappeared, and AOL was left dependent on IE, how long would it be before AOL's customers found it a "jolting experience" to surf the Net, while MSN's customers found it smooth as silk?
have you ever looked at the security options in IE? ... IE allows a flexible range of customization and settings - MUCH more so that Netscape.
While I agree with Microsoft's design here in theory, in practice, there have been countless holes discovered in these settings, which make them useless.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Having lived through all of what the author describes, this article simply distorts Netscape's past year of history in order to create a flashy, attention-grabbing story --- even if it's of questionable accuracy.
;) Yeah, it takes a few months to order a new computer, and we see an AOL logo at company meetings. So what? Personally, I think AOL is a great company to work for, whether perceived as "cool" or not.
;)
1. Attrition: Yes, people have burned out and left Netscape. But, you know what? New, enthusiastic employees of equal or greater caliber --- excited about the work that's being done at Netscape, and already trained from hacking on the Mozilla source code --- have come back to replace them in full force. The net effect is zero.
2. Netscape culture: Guess what? For most employees, the culture *hasn't* appreciably changed. Employees' dogs and children still have company badges, and we drink all the beer we want.
3. 5.0 Release Date: The author provides no evidence that the turnover has resulted in the one year delay in the Communicator 5 beta. Which is convenient --- because no cause and effect relationship exists between these two events. As many Mozillans have pointed out already in far more detail, the delay came about from a ground-up rearchitecting of the entire product. (And anyone who is bothered by this can go to http://www.mozilla.org and help ship a browser; whining here won't do jacksquat.)
4. Barry Schuler's comments: I attended that meeting. Barry **never** made these comments. He was, however, busily serving up a barbeque after the meeting, as Mr. Barksdale himself would have done. (Another AOL executive, in fact, did make these comments, but the journalist is, in my opinion grossly stripping the comments out of their intended context, which would have been obvious had he attended the meeting.)
Based exclusively on my personal experiences, it looks to me as if this journalist sought to write an article about a topic, and then wedged the facts to fit his original preconceptions. We ain't dead yet.
--- elig@prometheus-music.com's personal $.02.
(Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs! Don't forget the http://!)
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Movie News - "Entertainment news, bitch!"
Now if only Corel would jump into the browser competition like it has the OS, Office, and Drafting worlds, then I would be happy... Do you realize that Corel is aligning themselves to compete / replace microsoft on nearly every front but this one?
-Woil.
I think the article itself has been fairly thoroughly dissected, as has the author's journalistic methods. This same discussion always happens, and goes in the same direction, every time a ZD article (from any ZD holding) is posted here. The obvious lesson would be that the next time somebody subits a ZD article, Just Say No!
This concludes this broadcast of the Emergency Clue Network.
Are you insane? What planet do you live on? I hope Microsoft never points it's big guns at you. Gee... lets see.. I'm going to put out some software, try and make some money one so I can eat. Microsoft comes along, throws 100 million at their own version, and gives it away for free. Gee... big suprise when my company goes down the toilet.
So tell me, genius, how would *you* have stayed afloat in your new startup, no capital, next to no income, and not charged for your software? How do you compete with a behemouth with billions that wants to squash you?
I've looked at the MFC code. That has plenty of hacks. Many MSJ articles say the same. I don't think it unreasonable of me to extrapolate.
At least with Mozilla, Linux and pretty much every other program in Linux, the source is out there for the great unwashed to look at and evaluate.
I should have said, "pretty much every program that runs on Linux".
Well quite honestly.. I'd have to say Netscape killed Netscape. Lack of vision, lack of conforming to standards, lack of interest in forming OEM relationships. Netscape literally snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, they _were_ the monopoly in the browser market..and they let Microsoft chew them up and spit them back out. Netscape was dead before AOL bought them. Now of course some people are angry at microsoft for making IE free...well let me ask you something, Gimp is free, Gimp is similar to Photoshop, a commercial product that costs quite a bundle. Gimp is packaged with most Linux distributions (if not all?) Is Gimp evil? Netscape should've created other sources of revenue. Also notice that we now have two competing browsers that are _free_ as opposed to having one browser that was not. The consumer benefitted from competition. If you believe netscape should've remained the monopoly..well don't point fingers at Microsoft then. Now the issue here is "What comes next?" AOL does have gigantic resources to use in competition with MS, not only are they a wealthy company, but they also command the largest Internet user base. After their contract expires in 2001 (?) They should be able to dump their new AOL-Netscape browser onto every one of their customers which could shift the playing field overnight.
The W3C just sits on its hands while waiting for MS and the other Browser Manufacturers to duke it out, remember , wasn't even incorporated until HTML4.0, and XML SMIL and all the other *ML out there are slowly but surely being decided in Redmond and on the desktop, not at the w3c
Read my plan to save the Bengals
Hold on to your hats, because I'm about to offer what appears to be a real commodity here on Slashdot: an informed opinion. I worked for Netscape from 95-99. I was there. Were you? That being said, keep in mind that this is my opinion. (#include ) The most prophetic thing I ever heard about Netscape was that it was eventually going to be a Harvard Business Study. From what I understand about those studies, that isn't very complimentary. Casting aside the inflamatory excesses of the ZDnet article, there are only two reasons why Netscape is in the position that they are in now: mismanagement and poor product quality. In that order. That should tell you something (i.e. mismanagement engenders poor product quality). I've read some comments in this thread that stated it was "wrong" for Netscape to consider the browser a "platform". Well, if we didn't convince you, we certainly convinced Microsoft. The Dept. of Justice was also able to convince Judge Jackson for us. (For those who haven't, those findings of fact are _great_ reading.) Let me let you all in on a little secret: the "Browser Wars" were/are a creation of the media and user communities. Boiled down to the purest fundamentals, our strategy was to create a networked computing "platform". Market share, especially after MS started doing their nasty, was only of marginal interest. We were trying to do something completely different. (And they are trying again with 5.0/Mozilla.) What? The "Browser Wars" didn't happen? Nonsense! I must be an idiot! How can I say that? Well, it's pretty easy, though many in the Slashdot/Linux community don't realize it. The fact is that there is a significant difference between "geek" computing and "consumer" computing. Consumers don't care about standards compliance. Consumers don't care about plugins and extenstions. Consumers care about one thing: they want what they're using to work and they don't care how. They were the target for the new platform. Our efforts were directed primarliy at them. For a whole host of reasons (mismanagement and poor quality), we were unable to achieve this. MS was, irrespective of the underhanded and illegal crap they did to make sure they were able to. Yes, as an engineer I agree that standards compliance would be a wonderful thing. There are several problems, though. The main one being I don't think developers (not just in the OSS community) don't know what they mean by the term "standards compliance". Do you know how many ambiguities are in the average standards document? (More than there should be.) What happens when the biggest fish in the pond (i.e. MS) zigs, and the rest of the community zags? This is what I think of when I hear people whining for "standards compliance": developers want their code to work and they don't care how. Does that sound like the above definition of a consumer? Bingo! It should. Achieving true standards compliance will take a lot more activism than the community is putting out. About that activism for a moment. For all the adulation Netscape/AOL got for starting the Mozilla project, the amount of useful work that has come from outside the company doesn't measure up. Sorry to burst your bubble, guys, but according to my still-connected comrades there are at most a dozen or two useful outside contributors. Most of the people who blindly assert that Open Source == Good do like to look at the code and _maybe_ tweak it for their own purposes, but the truth is that there is a high barrier to entry into the community because the source tree is an undocumented rats nest. So where are the people to document it? (More than the current 'Find the Design Patterns' thingy that's happenning.) Where are the thousands of people to QA? There's a lot more to QA than just swiping the bits and complaining about bugs. Open Source is not automatically good. It only matters if there is an active community that sincerely cares and goes out of it's way to allow newcomers to contribute without alpha-male "I'm elite and you're not," posturing. I'm firmly convinced that the success of any open source project is directly proportional to the extent that it fosters a "good" community. The Mozilla Project would not exist if AOL didn't pay the salaries of the majority of engineers who work on it. I'm sorry but that's not my definition of a "good" community. Two things have to happen if open source is to be more than a flash in the pan. The first is that the community has to realize that consumers don't care how things work. This is hard because it is fundamental to geek nature to care about how things work. The second thing is that enough socialization has to take place to end posturing, encourage newcomers, and understand that not all work can be sexy. The Mozilla project has a lot of thankless work that needs to be done. For those that truly care about their computing environment and open development communities, try to contribute whatever you can whenever you can. You may not get the reward and recognition you want, but when people talk about how great the new open source browser is, you'll have the satisfaction of knowing that you contributed. Having volunteered in areas outside the open source community, that feeling is more valuable than our whacked capitalist^100 culture makes it out to be.
It was the same battle in the browser wars, and as most people agree, Netscape LOST when IE4 came out. IE5 is really good stuff, no one can argue there, and Netscape 4.7 is crap, my opinion.
You're right in saying "my opinion" because there are still lots of people out there who think that Netscape is still good, isn't crap, etc, etc (like me) and who wouldn't use IE 'less they had to (I do, sometimes, out of necessity).
When was the last time you installed windows and Boom!
I whole-heartedly agree with you on this one. The computer we had at my house ran/still runs Win95, but when I got my laptop, I wanted Win98, because I was stupid and believed that it would somehow be better. It wasn't, as we all know; in fact, it was worse. More of a memory hog, more of a pain, that stupid channel bar, Active Desktop, etc, etc, etc.. the list goes on for miles. Plus, my computer crashes more than the old computer running Win95! But, that's a bit off topic.. this isn't a Windows discussion, but.. just doing my <rant> for the day.
Insert mind here.
I'm sorry but quotes such as:
8 042,00.html The results are much different from what I've seen in articles such as the ZDnet for today's news and Jesse Berst's article here: http://www.zdnet.com/anchordesk/story/story_4076.h tml
Zona Research showing Netscape trailing Microsoft Internet Explorer by some 20 percent.
is a total misinterpretation of Zona's findings. Zona was only testing corporate users who use their browsers at work. Zona used a total of 160 or so respondants. Zona provides no margin of error that I could find.
This study has been touted in at least three ZDnet articles now as "proof" of IE's lead over Netscape. ZDNet articles have also claimed that the Zona study declares IE a winner, which it doesn't. *AND* Zona lists Microsoft as one of its "key clients" on its web page!
this is either deliberate or incompetant. Either way it's result is to generate unsubstantiated FUD.
The actual study is here: http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn/stories/news/0,4586,101
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Sorry, this is the right address for the Zona study:
http://www.zonaresearch.com/browserstudy
You'll see how the results have been totally warped to sound like an IE marketshare victory.
W
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This is my SIG. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Netcenter is still one of the top 5 sites on the internet in terms of hits. How can you say that it's fallen off the map. It gets more hits the /. ever will.
-Brent--
> I guess most of you wont be happy until you see a shiny box, and a magazine article that claims that the browser war has yet again a victor.
h tml#discontent
[coming from a mac user's perspective..]
No.. more like i won't be happy until Netscape releases a browser that isn't slow, unstable, ram-hogging and bloated, standards-noncompliant, and having an interface which is actually painful to use.
Mozilla sounds nice but it's not here now. MSIE4 is here now and works now and takes up half as much RAM as NS4. Icab is here now (if you can give up javascript) and takes up half as much RAM as IE4. For my purposes, until they release a version of mozilla that takes under 10 minutes to open isn't as unstable as a house of cards, netscape lost. They lost to IE in terms of a product that anyone would want to use, and lost to _everyone_ in terms of quality.. If they want to actually ship a usable product at some point in the future that's great. But until then i'm going to stick with shuttling between IE and Icab.
-mcc-baka
why web browsers suck: http://home.earthlink.net/~mcclure111/cyberleary.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I can't believe the amount of negative posts about Netscape in this topic. The story itself was already crap but it looks like all the backstabbers are busy this weekend. I can't but wonder if some ACs are here to try to boost opinions that Netscape lost because of an inferior product.
Now let's have a reality check. Netscape is not about Communicator anymore. It's been about Mozilla already for more than a year. Sure they have released new versions of Communicator, but all the hard development and hopes are on Mozilla. And believe me, Mozilla is looking better and better every day. Just grab a nightly build from ftp.mozilla.org and see with your own eyes.
Mozilla has been built from ground up. It's well designed and has some really ground breaking code. It's already faster than IE and there's still a lot to optimize. The nightly build for win32 is just 5,2 MB. Compare that to the 18,1 MB bloat of Communicator and tens of megs of MSIE. Those who have programmed know that the bigger the executable, the more it contains ugly spaghetti code. Mozilla is also perfect for cell phones and hand held devices as it's small, componentized and runs on a free OS. That gives Mozilla a difinite edge compared to MSIE.
We've been patiently waiting for Mozilla for a year already. Now that Mozilla is getting close to ready, we get to read all these horror stories about Netscape being dead. It's just FUD and if you read the Findings of Fact-document, you don't have to be a genious to figure out who's feeding these news. But it doesn't matter what ZDNet, Gartner or Microsoft say. Mozilla will ship within 2-3 months and it will be a great product.
It is probably much more around the idea that netscape 4.x is not modular, and they could not integrate the browser into the 'AOL' application. Mozilla is modular (and someone even made a compatibility ActiveX control with the WebBrowser interface, so you can swap it out with IE in your application code), but it isn't finished yet.
AOL also gets the benefit of being on the Windows 98 CD as long as they use IE, as part of M$'s wheeling and dealing to kill netscape.
You can infer a lot by the output of a program to how badly it is written. Same goes for operating systems.
We didn't ship because you didn't help us. If you would have helped us, we would have shipped
That was never stated nor implied. The more important statement here is that they were rebuilding the product from the ground up. Yes, it delays releases, but if the net result is a better product, so be it. Microsoft should learn from this approach, maybe start building Windows v6 now - might regain them some credibility.
On the article in general, I'm going to have to agree that it seems to suffer from a disturbing lack of unforced facts. I don't think I saw a single direct quote from a current employee, and as far as the attrition, etc., it looks like that was all from vague guesses by former employees. You want turnover figures, ask the HR department, and don't be surprised when they tell you where to go.
-Drayke
-Drayke
If all the world's a stage, it must have been an easy audition.
I had inside experience with Netscape before AOL gobbled them up. It wasn't a very pretty sight. Netscape couldn't finish any products--they would often cancel them right after a big we're-making-the-best-thing-since-sliced-bread gala. The Netscape that most people think of had already died out long before AOL came along.
aol and it's user-friendly connect-a-moron-to-the-rest-of-the-world tatics have just about ruined the entire internet. how many terabytes upon terabytes upon terabytes of resources have been wasted on useless, idiotic "who i am/pics of user's dog/carry out a better social life" crap! aol has long been the gateway for people who have no business using a computer in the first place to get in. i'm all for imposing computer-literacy (hate that term!) tests on anyone who request internet access. and by the way, i'm not bitter or anything :)
So you don't believe Microsoft engages in FUD campaigns, and other unethical behaviour?
h tml
Here are some Microsoft quotes for you . . .
Microsoft's Brad Silverberg re DR-DOS:
"We are engaged in a FUD campaign to let the press know about some of the bugs. We'll provide info a few bugs at a time to stretch it out."
Microsoft analysis paper re DR-DOS:
"On the PR side, we have begun an 'aggressive leak campaign' for MS-DOS 5.0. The goal is to build anticipation for MS-DOS 5.0, and diffuse potential excitement/momentum from the DR DOS 5.0 announcement."
Microsoft PR plan re DR-DOS:
"Objectives: FUD DR DOS with every editorial contact made."
Microsoft's Brad Silverberg re DR-DOS:
"What the guy is supposed to do is feel uncomfortable, and when he has bugs, suspect that the problem is dr-dos and then go out to buy ms-dos. or decide not to take the risk for all the other machines he has to buy for in the office."
Microsoft J++ Pricing Proposal re Java:
The "strategic objective" is to "kill cross-platform Java by grow[ing] the polluted Java market."
Memo re Java:
"at this point its [sic] not good to create MORE noise around our win32 java classes. Instead we should just quietly grow j++ share and assume that people will take advantage of our classes without ever realizing they are building win32-only java apps."
Microsoft's Vinod Valloppillil re Linux:
"OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market."
Microsoft's James Allchin re Netscape:
"I don't understand how IE is going to win. The current path is simply to copy everything that Netscape does packaging and product wise. Let's [suppose] IE is as good as Navigator/Communicator. Who wins? The one with 80% market share. Maybe being free helps us, but once people are used to a product it is hard to change them. Consider Office. We are more expensive today and we're still winning. My conclusion is that we must leverage Windows more. Treating IE as just an add-on to Windows which is cross-platform [means] losing our biggest advantage -- Windows marketshare. We should dedicate a cross group team to come up with ways to leverage Windows technically more. . . . We should think about an integrated solution -- that is our strength."
Microsoft's James Allchin re Netscape:
"Pitting browser against browser is hard since Netscape has 80% marketshare and we have [less than] 20%. . . . I am convinced we have to use Windows -- this is the one thing they don't have. . . . We have to be competitive with features, but we need something more -- Windows integration."
"If you agree that Windows is a huge asset, then it follows quickly that we are not investing sufficiently in finding ways to tie IE and Windows together."
Microsoft's Paul Maritz on Netscape:
The major reason for this is . . . to combat Nscp, we have to [] position the browser as "going away" and do deeper integration on Windows.
Microsoft's Christian Wildfeuer on Netscape:
"The stunning insight is this: To make [users] switch away from Netscape, we need to make them upgrade to Memphis. . . . It seems clear to me that it will be very hard to increase browser market share on the merits of IE 4 alone. It will be more important to leverage the OS asset to make people use IE instead of Navigator."
Microsoft executive re Netscape:
Content drives browser adoption, and we need to go to the top five sites and ask them, "What can we do to get you to adopt IE?" We should be prepared to write a check, buy sites, or add features -- basically do whatever it takes to drive adoption.
Microsoft's Brad Chase re Netscape:
"We will bind the shell to the Internet Explorer, so that running any other browser is a jolting experience."
Yep. Just honest-to-goodness competition on the merits of their products -- in a pig's eye.
Sources:
DR-DOS Case - Consolidated Statement of Facts:
http://www.drdos.com/fullstory/factstat.html
Java Case - Motion for Preliminary Injunction:
http://java.sun.com/lawsuit/051498.unfair.html
Linux - Halloween Document:
http://www.opensource.org/halloween/halloween1.
DOJ Case - Findings of Fact:
http://usvms.gpo.gov/findfact.html
Do you honestly think ZDNet was off base?
Yes. In all honesty I think Netscape is struggling at this point, but still has a lot of life left in it if they can put out a strong product (5.0) quickly, and perhaps if something develops soon in the DOJ vs. MS case that would allow Netscape to start setting up agreements to bundle browsers with new systems (that's still where most impressions are formed). It's a tough case, but it's not hopeless.
-Drayke
-Drayke
If all the world's a stage, it must have been an easy audition.
Where did this saying "ever" come from. I first heard it in the movie "Stand By Me" , and now here it is again. Was this ever a Real saying?
Forget Netscape. Forget AOL. Forget SUN.
:)
/. readers want.
I could care less about these companies or ANY other company for that matter.
I'm currently using Netscape 4.06(!).
('Coz I got so accustomed to its crashes, I kinda consider it a feature now - I NEED 'em
And let me tell you somethin.
I don't like monopolies.
SO I CAN'T migrate to IEx.x, just 'coz it's a WHOLE LOT BETTER than my Netscape.
(x.x >= 5.5)
BUT THE MASSES CAN,
UNLESS you offer them A BETTER ALTERNATIVE. F A S T.
-which is:
a FINISHED (NO BETA), COMPACT & FREE BROWSER
that EQUALS or surpasses IEx.x on STABILITY, SECURITY & USER-FRIENDLINESS
and OFFERS EVERY OFTEN-USED FEATURE that IEx.x does
and that runs on Windoze and Linux
those are the MINIMUM requirements
don't care where it comes from (ANYTHIN BUT MSFT ofcrs)
don't care about its name
does it have to be open-source?
NO, but it would be GREAT if it were. And I believe it would also NEED to be for long-term 'survival'.
does it have to follow standards? (that is, not seek to extend them)
NO, but I would very much appreciate if it did. Don't try to fight MSFT on its own terrain.
Go for their weak spots. Security, stability, closed source. Cfr. Linux.
This is what I want.
This is probably what a LOT of
This is what's NEEDed to keep MSFT from monopolizing the browser market.
This is what's NEEDed to make Linux a viable platform for the masses to browse the web.
Oh you don't care about that right? You're not really into fightin MSFT over desktops eh?
You just need your own little Tux in your own little desktop.
Well you better START to care!
The masses, you see, are so BRAINWASHed by years of MSFT marketing,
they FORGOT they WANT and NEED C H O I C E.
I WANT CHOICE. NOW and FOREVER.
&
THOSE WHO HAVE THE POWER TO CREATE CHOICE
HAVE THE OBLIGATION TO DO SO.
I don't have that power. DO YOU?
Does Netscape 5.0 qualify? From what I hear, it doesn't.
Does Opera qualify? NOPE, 'coz for one thing, it ain't free.
Does Mozilla qualify? YOU TELL ME!
(And the next hurdle will be... a me$$enger-compatible instant messager...)
I agree. Bloatware. =:-)
Its happening. One of the greatest things I have seen is the separation of rendering engine from the application. The KDE html rendering component is being ported to bonobo and wrappers for mozilla is already underway IIRC. With HTML rendering everywhere will give GNU a truly web desktop... the right way I because of the nature of open development.
Also there is mnemonic. If you are extreme web surfer dude you won't care about mnemonic. But the mnemonic project is looking to do a very extensable browser interface. They want to do HTML, XML, TeX, MathML, etc. And I don't think it is tied to GUI.
GZilla is coming along nicely I think. Then there is Lynx which is a viable alternative right now. I use it consistantly and the only reason I use netscape occasionally is because too many web developers don't care about text-only users...
Then there is emacs/w3. I haven't been able to get this one to work but I hear it has impressive CSS support.
Just remember this when considering Bazaar development. Programmers program because it is interesting and not for production value. Just because we have two great desktops doesn't mean we won't have another superfluous desktop or ten more. Same thing goes for every other free software project. If it is interesting it will be done, how much it benefits our revolution is often beside the point.
Nothing is more important than the hack.
***Beginning*of*Signiture***
Linux? That's GNU/Linux to you mister!
Navigator 3.04 (X11/Linux) went through all 3 pages without any problem. I stick to this "old" version because it works most of the time. I've tried Communicator 4.7 but the mailer was so slow,
not to mention the different UI, that I gave up on it after about 2 hours of utilization.
3.04 is not so bad indeed. Like most other people, I'm waiting for the 1st non beta-release of Mozilla - which will require me to upgrade to Slackware 7 for the glibc 2.1 - and if it doesn't do it, I'll go for the Opera browser.
There's one recent trend I would like to complain about here: browser sniffers. Those f...g JS applets are probably written by good people whose managers are convinced that netsurfers use the most recent release of either NS or IE. This is definitely a wrong assumption. Sites like www.bmwusa.com, www.linuxworldexpo.com or the secured version of www.summitbank.com (I bank in NJ and I am on temporary assignment in CA) will deny access to browsers older than NS 4. That's a shame. HTML used to be an open standard, but then came Sun with all their fancy Java stuff and the world suddently came to an end - at least for NS 3 users...
Going on means going far, going far means returning. Tao te Ching
A quick lookup on http:/www.netcraft.com./ reveals that some of the users of Netcape web servers are State Farm (the name I used for the lookup), Dilbert, Playboy, Sybase, Ferrari and Walt Disney. Are these names big enough for your taste?
Going on means going far, going far means returning. Tao te Ching
The Ex-Mozilla site has a self-maintaining list of people who have fled Netscape. Ironically, there is also a My Netscape Network channel which lists the most recently changed entries on Ex-Mozilla.
Are you insane? What planet do you live on? I hope Microsoft never points it's big guns at you. Gee... lets see.. I'm going to put out some software, try and make some money one so I can eat. Microsoft comes along, throws 100 million at their own version, and gives it away for free. Gee... big suprise when my company goes down the toilet.
My guess is that people like you have a short memory. Netscape built their market share by giving the browser away on their website. Oh, sure, you had to pay after 90 days [nudge nudge wink wink]. I downloaded it a few times myself. Never reminded me to pay, never quit working (besides the hideous bugs).
At the time, Netscape had around 95% of the browser market (and Microsoft is a monopoly because of their current 60% share) and used that monopoly to wield control over the web. They created new tags, javascript (sorry, it's not a "standard"), and cookies. They owned it.
Now, you tell us, genius, how in the hell was Microsoft supposed to compete against a monopoly that gave its software away? The only choice they had was to do the same.
I hate to defend Microsoft, but at least they're honest about wanting to rule the world.
Do you have ESP?
So you don't believe Microsoft engages in FUD campaigns, and other unethical behaviour?
Where does he say he doesn't believe in Microsoft's FUD? He made a valid statement when he pointed out that the article is accurate when it says that AOL has managed Netscape badly and driven away most off the original employees. Please don't take my word for it here's a quote or two from actual Netscape employees.
We all now all the evil things Microsoft has done...crushing Netscape & polluting Java are the ones that really get me riled up but it doesn't mean that we should ignore rational discussion of blind our eyes to the facts in an effort to stoke the flames of hatred.
AOL is just as bad as Microsoft it's simply easier to avoid them.
Bad Command Or File Name
wouldnt it be swell if the best programmers from the netscape dayz went to go work for the browser company formerly known as Microsloth. Once M$ internet division is split into a different company, we could take it by force and skill and reprogram that piece of shiat Iexploder! Just my $.01 Company stock went down today.
As a customer of both companies, this doesn't seem bad at all. I've seen worse upgrade headaches from a single vendor. What are Sun's customers pissed about with regard to their server software? They've got the most popular commercial Unix out there, and some of the best hardware and hardware support around. Their own server software line was never that popular in the first place, and moving customers from one standards-compliant server software line to another isn't bad at all.
Yeah, iPlanet == Sun, but it's not like changing the brand name means the underlying products came out of nowhere.
Are you a paying customer of either? Personally, I'd rather use OpenLDAP, Cyrus, and an EJB appserver that plays nice with Apache. But as a customer of both Sun and Netscape over the years, I think the Sun adoption of the Netscape server product line is good news.
No, Microsoft is a monopoly because they can tank anyone that gets in their way.
Netscape wasn't a monopoly by definition, as evidenced by the fact that they couldn't hold the browser market, even WITH a 95% share.
If ever there was a case of winning against M$, they should have been it. But they lost, again proving that it you have more money you can kill anything you want. Now, you tell us, genius, how in the hell was Microsoft supposed to compete against a monopoly that gave its software away? The only choice they had was to do the same.
Your argument assumes that Netscape would have thrived if it had continually given away it's software never making money. 20/20 hindsight shows us that they couldn't. M$ forced them to give up permanently the idea of charging for their browser. And where did it get them? Tanked. Clearly, they just weren't making enough MONEY to stay afloat, keep good engineers, keep their market share -- heck, even a reasonable share of the market. They LOST.
It's a pretty simple equation: little income against big bad M$ == death. Your only hope is to try avoid their radar altogether, or to have them fuck up somehow and sign a contract with you such that they can't screw you over (read: Java -- even still they tried to subvert it at every chance they got).
And yes, I once worked at a company that had M$ aim it's guns at us. It was a medium sized company, we tried to buy a smaller startup that had some technology we wanted to compete with a M$ product (something already on the market but theirs sucked the big weenie). M$ got wind of what we were up to, counterbid against us several times until we couldn't bid higher, up to the point of a ridicuous amount (way more than the startup was worth) and then --- get this --- M$ killed the technology that they just bought. Never saw the light of day.
*That*, my friend, is why M$ is a monopoly. They can do damn near anything they wanted. Bob
The statement was not necessarily asking for more development. Bug finders and testers are not subject to Moore's law, and Mozilla probably needs them more now than developers.
While I agree with most of the points above, I respectfully disagree with the first point, that new employees completely replace their previous counterparts.
The previous employees have the day-to-day functional knowledge for that particular work environment. Need to get a computer / peripheral quickly? They know which admin assistant is the most responsive. They know which boss will "invite" you to meetings, and which will shield you from as many as possible. They even know where you can get a lunch without waiting the whole hour in a line.
My point-de-resistance is... almost all documentation for almost all software lives in the author's mind. Losing the sole source of an obsure or crucial piece of code sucks really hard. It makes life hard.
I believe that while eager new employees certainly _can_ equal the productivity of their predecessors, they certainly do not do so right away. And when deadlines are tight (haha! always!) that can do Bad Things to the project.
(It can, however, lead to very profitable "consultancy" tasks for the former author. Unless they for some reason don't like the company any longer =)
D'oh! Not Moore's law, of course, but you know what I mean!
Of course they don't. I was responding to a hypothetical scenario suggested by the original poster in this thread. This hypothetical scenario included MSIE-Linux being GPL'ed. So nyah, nyah!
Also, I do consider MSIE 4.0 to be decent. Unlike their OS. I use it on my laptop (which I keep W95 on for Quicken), and I'm more or less satisfied with it. On my primary box (Linux kernel 2.0.36) I prefer to use Lynx.
-- $SIGNATURE
LeviLevi writes:
"The main one being I don't think developers (not just in the OSS community) don't know what they mean by the term "standards compliance". Do you know how many ambiguities are in the average standards document? (More than there should be.) What happens when the biggest fish in the pond (i.e. MS) zigs, and the rest of the community zags?"
I have a hard time believing that the HTML standards at the time were *SO* ambiguous that anybody could reasonably interpret them as permitting that excretion, the BLINK tag! And that's one eyesore Microsoft was (for once) not responsible for...
Christian R. Conrad
MY opinions, not my employer's - Hedengren, Finland.
Christian R. Conrad
mail me at iki.fi ; same user ID as here