Word: browsers
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...opposed to merely promoting one company's fortunes at another's expense. Asked whether the PC vendor Packard Bell would want to buy Windows at a discount if it didn't include Explorer, a spokeswoman was skeptical. "Would customers want to pay less for a computer without an integrated browser," she mused, "or do they prefer to have an integrated, simple way to surf the Internet?" Microsoft dependents always speak carefully in public, but her implication is clear: her customers would probably want the browser anyway...
...world now knows, that's precisely what happened. Once the toast of Wall Street, Netscape appeared to be toast. Its historic browser--the software that took the cold gray wonkish world of the Internet and made it multimedia, rendering the Net usable by millions--had at its peak accounted for 85% of the market. Now it has, at best, a 55%-to-60% share, and that's slipping fast. Its stock, which once soared above $85 a share (adjusted for a 2-for-1 stock split), lost nearly half its value during a three-month period and hit bottom...
Since then, the company has made a number of moves to keep itself in the game, including a deal with search-engine firm Excite that will bring in $70 million over the next two years. But it's also been reduced to giving away its browser code for free in a last-ditch effort to enlist every anti-Microsoft hacker on the planet to do battle with Gates...
...point Microsoft offered $40 million in return for 15% to 20% of the company. But according to Netscape officials, the terms were always hopelessly unacceptable. In an early 1995 negotiation, for example, Netscape asked Microsoft for the advance information its programmers would need to make the Netscape browser run properly with Windows 95. According to Clark, Microsoft refused unless it got a piece of the company and a seat on the board. Netscape finally decided to go to the DOJ through its outside counsel, Gary Reback...
Perhaps if Netscape had agreed to license its code, the company would be in better shape today. But probably not. Microsoft ended up doing the deal with an outfit called Spyglass, whose code became the core of Internet Explorer. Spyglass has since left the PC browser business and is selling software for hand held devices and TV set-top boxes. It posted a $9.7 million loss last year. It was doomed...