Netscape casts around for European Vars

Netscape has announced ambitious plans to appoint 500 European Vars by the end of the year. Jean Francois Guyomer, European channel manager, is heading the initiative and is currently rolling out an education plan for Vars. The company has recently added Sphinx Level V to its distributor base of Azlan and Unipalm. Ideally resellers will have a background in Unix or TCP/IP.

Although the company is obviously best known for its browser, it only makes real money from its server products. Roadshows this month will be followed by seminars in Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester and London.

On the browser front, Microsoft has managed to outflank Netscape by doing distribution deals with America Online and CompuServe. The deals came only a day after Netscape signed AOL to offer Navigator to its subscribers.