Newsletter sign-up

View all newsletters

Sign up for our technology specific newsletters.

Enterprise Java

Email Address:

"Netscape TWO" -- The Open Network Environment (ONE) improved

How Netscape has enhanced its intranet strategy and formed a response to Microsoft's position in the corporate computing world

By William Blundon, JavaWorld.com, 01/01/97

The 1980s saw a dramatic shift in the way global business strategies were formulated and discussed. Peter Drucker went out the door along with strategic planning departments and five-year operational plans. In came books on competition, reengineering, and entrepreneurs. Indeed, rumors abounded that the required reading list at the Harvard Business School would ultimately be condensed to three authors: Sun Tsu, Michael Hammer, and Tom Peters.

As the 1990s come to a close, strategists in many Internet software companies seem to have focused all their leisure-time reading on one book -- The Godfather. While many people in the software industry believe that Bill Gates wrote the book under a pseudonym, Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola cashed the biggest royalty checks. At least until recently. It is rapidly becoming apparent that somewhere in Silicon Valley a Netscape executive must be circulating an abridged version of the novel that summarizes the key concepts and provides selected aphorisms.

The most recent extensions to Netscape's Open Network Environment (ONE) are greatly illuminated by a careful reading of two of these aphorisms:

1. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer
   
   
2. Always make money for your partners

Netscape TWO

An earlier column "(Netscape outlines its product strategy: NONE" JavaWorld, October 1996) discussed several implications of the initial announcement of Netscape ONE, the company's overall intranet strategy. That column and research bulletins from many industry analysts criticized that architecture for ignoring the realities of the existing corporate development environment, which is usually Windows-centric and frequently Microsoft-centric. In its first incarnation, Netscape ONE ignored a set of de facto standards that exist in most corporations (OLE, COM, OCX, and ActiveX, for example) as well as the economy's reliance on popular Microsoft applications software.

The impact of The Godfather is evident in Netscape's response to these criticisms. In an attempt to keep its enemies closer, Netscape announced a comprehensive strategy to adopt and integrate selected Microsoft technologies into its clients, servers, and overall product architecture. The company announced a sweeping set of changes that should dramatically accelerate the adoption of Netscape products in even the most ardent Microsoft shops.

The new strategy is comprehensive enough to be considered Netscape TWO, a much more complete and sensible vision than its predecessor. The most relevant portions of this strategy include:

• Support for major Microsoft APIs such as ActiveX, OLE, COM, and DCOM on Windows 95 computers
  
  
• Tight integration with Microsoft Office (both 95 and 97)
  
  
• Support for SQL Server and SMS
  
  
• Enhanced support for Windows NT services

Many observers were surprised by the degree of backward compatibility for Microsoft standards in the new and improved ONE, but it is a recognition by Netscape that the intranet is not a zero sum game, and that in most companies Microsoft is the incumbent.

 

About Us | Advertise | Contact Us | Terms of Service/Privacy

Copyright, 2006-2008 Network World, Inc. All rights reserved.