Comeback Kit
Netscape has moved in on Microsoft's turf, which proves, says BobbyPickering, that it ain't over till the fat lady sings
A lot of Netscape supporters must be confused about recent developments.
The company has finally started to hit back at Microsoft's attempt to kill it off. But it is retaliating by abandoning the browser war and capitulating to Microsoft's desktop software dominance.
Since MS launched its 'embrace, extend and innovate strategy to enhance the Internet', Netscape has been silently taking punches to the head as MS has come out fighting mean and hard.
Everything changed when Netscape launched its counter attack. Not only did it throw MS' strategy back in its face, promising to integrate MS' legacy technologies, but it also moved the goalposts in the browser war to a software sector in which MS is weak - groupware.
The verbal sparring has been fierce between the two chairmen Gates and Barksdale, which signals a new Netscape aggression towards MS.
The two chairman engaged in a 'mine is bigger than yours' slagging match over who was most committed to open standards on the Net. Both accused the other of attempting to wrest control of Internet standards and developing proprietary technologies behind a mask of openness. It's going to take a long while before either side concedes defeat on this one.
Barksdale was in equally pugilistic form when he announced Netscape's plans on 15 October. He not only had MS in his sights, but Lotus too.
Navigator was ditched as a standalone entity and Communicator was launched.
Netscape's decision to deliver greater integration between its client/server software and MS' software is not so much an endorsement of existing MS systems in corporate intranets as a declaration of war against them.
Netscape will offer a competitive alternative to MS' vision of application interoperability on the Windows platform.
Netscape isn't giving users a reason to embrace MS, it's offering MS users a path out of its all-embracing grasp. 'Netscape will simplify migration from MS' legacy development environments and databases to the open system alternatives embraced by the rest of the industry,' he says, while his sidekick Marc Andreessen, echoes: 'Netscape will help customers unify their existing environments with intranets to deliver a seamless user, developer and administrator experience.'
Netscape is looking at things from the perspective of its customers and channel partners. Selling its Suite Spot server software and the new Communicator client to companies that are heavily reliant on MS must involve close integration with the existing environments.
MS will offer its own solutions and Netscape will have to compete with them on functionality and cost. But the new strategy will focus on the possibility of a movement away from total MS domination.
Andreessen confirmed Navigator will be withdrawn as a standalone product when Communicator is launched. This will put MS in a bit of a quandary - not least because you can't have a browser war without a competing browser to war against. MS will have to decide whether it is going to beef up its 'IE freebie' with some expensive email and groupware functionality all for the same zero price (see box).
Client product marketing VP Bob Lisbonne says: 'Communicator and Suite Spot will provide an open email and groupware solution that lets users communicate with a broad range of people across geographical boundaries.'
These functions are at the heart of what has made Notes and the groupware market so successful. Netscape is not mincing its words in attacking Lotus where it hurts - in the cost of its installations. Barksdale claims the average time to payback on a Netscape intranet setup is three months, against a Notes installation payback of 2.1 years.
'Companies are realising Netscape solutions are the best opportunities on the Net because they enable great cost savings and quickly deliver a high return on investment,' he says. 'With our 1997 product family, we are well positioned to magnify those customer savings.'
Netscape, which desperately needs to refloat its balloon on Wall Street, thinks it can return to its golden boy status by focussing on this potentially gigantic intranet market. When Forrester Research peered into its crystal ball, it saw $10 billion revenue by 2000 floating in the mist, and Netscape's goal is to capture 50 per cent of it.
All of this indicates Netscape is re-inventing itself, metamorphosising from being a Web browser firm to being an intranet software firm. Barksdale tried to sum it all up in a humourous anecdote. 'We've got to get beyond the browser. It reminds me of that joke about the two fishermen in a boat in the middle of the ocean. One says to the other, "Look at all that water", and the other replies: "Yes, and we're just looking at the top".'
No one at the launch fell to the floor gasping for breath at that one.
But the joke did manage to encapsulate Netscape's predicament of needing to move away from the superficial amounts of cash that can be found in selling browsers, after MS' attempt to destroy the inherent value in that market. What it needs to have in focus is the substantial depths of the intranet.
The icing on the Netscape cake will come with all the additional possibilities in the Communicator client/server environment. Andreessen talks about intelligent agents as the next wave of Netmania - software that pushes information to the client as opposed to the browser model where the client pulls information off the Web.
Netscape has signed up with major newspapers around the world to provide content for its Inbox Direct subscribers who specify the areas they are interested in and have tailored news and analysis delivered to them.
Positioning itself to surf these upcoming Web waves - intranets, distributed groupware and intelligent agents - suggests Netscape is far from being out for the count. In fact, it has come back fighting.