Will Microsoft's influence dwindle?

And if so, when?

[Clark]

Most of the general public, and I'd even say many pros don't quite realize why Microsoft decided to destroy Netscape. Nor why they won. Nor why Firefox is such a threat.

Netscape had the promise of delivering much of the benefits of the desktop through the Internet...for free...and not developed by Microsoft.

And this scared Microsoft that it could replace their beloved cash cow Office product. They not only had to beat Netscape, but they had to do it fast.

So they competed with much more money and programmers and gave away their browser for free. But the lynchpin was not even that. It was the sale of NS to AOL.

Considering what happened after the sale, one has to wonder if there was some backoffice deals going on. AOL stopped development of Netscape and Microsoft stopped developing IE at more or less the same time. Maybe MS paid off AOL somehow?

Had Netscape development continued, despite the high price they were paying by their competition, together, they and IE would have had to reach a level of development that would have threatened the pants off of B.G. Does anyone remember NS's market share when they sold to AOL? (I don't.)

People don't realize that the Internet is crippled. A lot of the rich features that an Office product can deliver, should be standardly available on a browser that was truly developed in earnest.

Now that Firefox has caught up with MS, they are becoming a danger and MS has to work on their browser. And MS/BG probably have more tricks up their sleeve. But can they quash innovation forever? Doubtful.

So will MS lose dominance soon? How soon?

[StupidScript]

Sad side note:

The LA Times ran an article Dec 20 about NetZero and low-cost dial-up. In it, they had this little note, regarding how AOL is trying to comete in that market:

AOL's response has been the launch of a $10 service that the Time Warner Inc. unit calls Netscape.

End of an era.

Will the same happen to M? Not for a long time. IMHO, the demise of M will occur when its board decides it's too much trouble to keep defending security-based lawsuits, and when their hegemony is reduced to parity in other sectors, and they decide to sell it to another conglomerate (maybe Time Warner? More likely Fox. :).

Once it becomes a commodity, it'll get wrung out and discarded like it does to the smaller competitors it has spent its corporate life buying-out.

[treeline]

I seem to remember that Netscape's market share was slipping considerably when AOL bought them. People thought AOL would switch to it, but they never did. At the time the deal AOL had with MS was if AOL used Internet Explorer, the join AOL icon would be preloaded on every Windows desktop sold. Growth was king at AOL.

[StupidScript]

Quick thought visualized through a foggy timeline:

1997: AOL stops producing their own web browser, and starts using a re-engineered MSIE v3. (There never was a v1 or v2 ... because v3 is better)

1999 (really): AOL becomes a feature of the default MS Win98 installation (What a coup! Turns out to be the best thing that ever happened to AOL ... kept the BBS alive for another 5 years)

[in the interim, AOL continues to struggle with implementations of MSIE ... never quite succeeding in generating a browser that could work well from within their BBS system]

2002: AOL/Time Warner absorbs Netscape Corporation, immediately replacing its Top Brass with the media conglomerate's own players. (Important Note: AOL is still a prominent online feature in Win installations, even while in direct competition with MSN.)

2004: The Netscape browser becomes a footnote in history (sorry, there won't be anything beyond v7), and the name "Netscape" gets repurposed for use by a new ISP division within the AOL/Time Warner service group. (Important Note: AOL is still a prominent online feature in Win installations, even while in direct competition with MSN.)

Does this sound familiar to ANYONE?!?

Yep ... it's the old "bait and switch", MS-style. Buy the company and bury it. The only reason we still think AOL is independent is because we don't want to believe that THE graphical, easy-to-use Internet Pioneer of the 80's (sorry, Compuserve users) has sold out to the big, bad corporate machine.

I do, sincerely apologize to the MS hold-outs out there, but most of this is the way it went down. I'm not against MS so much as for disclosure.

And the way this looks ain't too promising, either.

<edit>While this may be only barely relevant to this thread, it was sparked by the thought: "How long can M continue with their current business model?" I mean, what if the tide turns, and America becomes interested in "what I really need and want" instead of propaganda? I could go on ... Thanks for your indulgence.</edit>

[Clark]

That's exactly what I was trying to say. I believe MS cut a deal behind the scenes (allowing AOL to exist in competition w/ MSN, which ALSO helped them w/ the antitrust litigation) to get AOL to "buy" Netscape in order to bury it. The obvious payoff was the AOL on win desktop, but with these huge corporations, there could always be other, behind the scenes exchanges.