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In the first in the series is the story of Netscape. Later we'll explore what effect does it have on the market and enterprise desktop environment. Further, we'll explorer what can fill up the vacuum created by the absence of Netscape.
This is the story of the world's first most popular browser - Netscape. I'll tell you how it lived. And I'll tell you how it died…
After there was Internet and before there was Internet Explorer there was a browser called Mosaic from Mosaic Communications Corporation. Later Mosaic Communications Corporation changed its name to Netscape Communications and Netscape Navigator was born. Netscape Navigator was released in 1994 year end.
Netscape had an attractive licensing scheme that allowed free use for non-commercial purpose. This ultimately led to its massive popularity and made it the de facto standard especially on the popular Windows platform. Netscape presented Livescript to the internet which we know as JavaScript today. Netscape remained the leader with a browser share of more than 50%. Microsoft later licensed the Mosaic source code from Spyglass, Inc. and turned it into Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer was integrated into the Windows
operating system and was set as the default browser which led to its wide usage resulting in a drop in Netscape's share.
Further as a result of an agreement between Microsoft and Apple which required that Internet Explorer be the default browser on the Mac OS, Netscape lost another major market share. Later America Online bought Netscape and subsequent versions of Netscape were based on the Mozilla source code (Mozilla meanwhile emerged from the community contributed code in Netscape Communicator).Mozilla meanwhile had grown in popularity for its various products especially the Mozilla Suite and the Firefox Browser. On 28 Dec 2007 AOL announced the cancellation of the development of Netscape Navigator. The support for the same ends by 1 Feb 2008.
Due to the popularity, ubiquitous presence and a (quite) monopoly that Netscape enjoyed, it was the first to be adopted by the enterprise desktop environment. Later eventually when Internet Explorer came bundled, Netscape stayed silently on the desktop mostly to be used for application compatibility (as Internet Explorer is/was widely critisised for its poor support for web standards). Internet Explorer in the initial days (and mostly till version 6) was a carrier of major security flaws and a target for sites serving spyware, suspicious ActiveX controls. Netscape while missing the support for ActiveX stayed less prone to hijacking. This to an extent justified for it's presence as an alternate browser on the enterprise desktop.
Now that AOL has decided to stop the development for Netscape, what's the seen like for enterprises? We'll explore that in the next post…
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