Netscape Browser Officially Passes Into History

It is surely evidence of how quickly and thoroughly Internet history passes by, that few will have noticed as one of the most iconic personifications of the rise of the Internet passed into oblivion recently. In late December 2007, America Online (AOL) announced that it would officially cease development and support for the Netscape browser on February 1st, 2008. One reason why Netscape will not be missed is that its popularity has long been surpassed by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (77% market share) and Mozilla Firefox (a 16% and growing share) — which itself traces its history back to open source software derived from Netscape. Aficionados of Netscape can still download the software at this website, but AOL will not provide any support.

For sure, few of the world’s 1.5 billion Internet users know what Netscape Communications Corporation became famous for in 1995, let alone who acquired it in 1999. But those in the know will be clear about the role of Geneva-based European nuclear research agency CERN through the work of one Tim Bernard Lee, on to a Silicon Valley startup company named Mosaic Communications Corporation through the work of (then obscure University of Illinois undergraduate student) Marc Andreesen at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA).

Then named Mosaic, Andreesen’s Internet browser became one of the most downloaded Internet applications ever and led to growing popular interest in the Internet and the company. By the end of 1994, Mosaic Corporation had been renamed Netscape Communications Corporation, and it continued to soar in the public imagination. This all culminated in the then biggest initial public stock offering and fuelled the subsequent dot-com boom.

Unfortunately, following intense competition, principally from Microsoft, the popularity of Netscape’s browser and its related servers almost immediately started a steady decline which brought about the company’s 1999 acquisition by America Online. AOL went on to acquire media giant Time Warner for US$164 billion in 2000, creating AOL Time Warner. In 2003, as the profitability of the AOL division declined, AOL Time-Warner, dropped the AOL moniker and reverted to just Time Warner, signalling that investors no longer believed that an association with Internet properties provided meaningful value to the original media company.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 5:33 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

One Response to “Netscape Browser Officially Passes Into History”

1. Printing West Palm Beach Says:
   May 23rd, 2010 at 2:37 pm

   Printing West Palm Beach…

   …

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