VERSION TWO: NETSCAPE'S BACK.Netscape, which played a central role in the commercial development of the Web as an independent company and which is now a division of America Online See AOL. Inc., introduced Netscape 6, a faster and easier-to-customize browser. It's the first major overhaul of the browser since Netscape became part of AOL (A division of Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY, www.aol.com) The world's largest online information service with access to the Internet, e-mail, chat rooms and a variety of databases and services. in early 1999. The announcement follows a federal judge's finding that Microsoft illegally used its monopoly in personal-computer operating system operating system (OS) Software that controls the operation of a computer, directs the input and output of data, keeps track of files, and controls the processing of computer programs. software to monopolize mo·nop·o·lize tr.v. mo·nop·o·lized, mo·nop·o·liz·ing, mo·nop·o·liz·es 1. To acquire or maintain a monopoly of. 2. To dominate by excluding others: monopolized the conversation. the market for Web browsers. Netscape 6, written essentially from scratch, is the long-awaited successor to Netscape Communicator, which has seen only minor revisions since version 4.5 shipped in October 1998. Netscape 6 includes a new browsing engine, "Gecko gecko (gĕk`ō), small or medium-sized lizard of the family Gekkonidae. The more than 300 species are distributed throughout the warm regions of the world, mostly in the Old World. Despite folklore to the contrary, their bite is not poisonous. ," which is the most public result yet of Netscape's March 1998 decision to open its source code for revision by its users. Netscape's browser dominated the market starting in late 1994 - but started losing share after Microsoft bundled its Internet Explorer browser with its Windows operating system. Microsoft also gave its browser away for free and updated it more frequently than Netscape, which now holds only 20 percent of the browser market, according to Jupiter Communications. The competition between Microsoft and Netscape was a central issue in the recent Microsoft antitrust case; in his ruling delivered last week, US District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson Thomas Penfield Jackson (born January 10, 1937) was a United States District Court Judge for the District of Columbia. He was appointed in 1982 after serving as president of the District of Columbia Bar Association. He is currently an attorney with the Jackson and Campbell, P.C. wrote that Microsoft's decision to bundle Internet Explorer with Windows was "the result of a deliberate and purposeful choice to quell incipient competition." Netscape 6 also makes it easier for users to connect to AOL's popular instant-messaging chat service. And other hooks will bring Netscape users to its own Web site, where the company will ply visitors with advertisements and shopping opportunities. Netscape.com was the sixth-most visited site on the Web in the month of February, according to the Web measurement firm Media Metrix. AOL has also enlisted a range of partners that have agreed to use its browser in their products, including computer giants Sun Microsystems Inc. and IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) Corp., cellular-phone giant Nokia Corp. and Liberate Technologies Inc., a maker of software for interactive television boxes. |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion