Word: browser
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
They aren't dueling over peanuts: enormous fortunes await those whose software guides consumers through the cornucopia of goods and services that will comprise tomorrow's World Wide Web. Netscape founder Jim Clark realized this first, and his company released the initial--and now dominant--mainstream Web browser back in October '94. Today it enjoys a $3.5 billion market capitalization despite sales of just $80 million in 1995. Bill Gates saw the light last winter, famously stating that Microsoft was "hardcore about the Internet," and, to prove it, turning the $75 billion company, and its $8.7 billion of annual sales...
Half a year later, the duel has turned nasty, with legal shrapnel accompanying this month's releases of the latest versions of competing browsers, Netscape's Navigator 3.0 and Microsoft's Explorer 3.0. Which one is better? It's hard to say, and this in itself is a victory for Microsoft, which released its first weak browser just a year ago. Many Microsoft-loathing high-tech cognoscenti say Navigator remains the better guide. But the new Explorer narrows that gap convincingly, and the average user won't notice much difference...
Here's where things get interesting, as Netscape and Microsoft are building their browsers around rival development tool kits, or platforms. Netscape is paired with Sun Microsystems' Java, a programming language that has won the fierce but possibly ephemeral allegiance of Silicon Valley's software jocks (the Netscape/Java alliance, a giddy Sun executive hyperbolized last year, "is the last great hope to stop Microsoft world domination"). Java is starting from scratch, though, and it could take painfully long for its adherents to produce high-quality applications. Microsoft's Active-X platform, by contrast, supports both Java and the venerable Visual...
...BOOKS . . . RANDOM HOUSE DICTIONARY: The English language is alive and ill. The very quality that enriches the vocabulary -->