FRAMINGHAM (09-15-95) - Netscape Communications Corp. this week will announce a series of development tools for building applications for the World Wide Web. A major upgrade to Netscape's Navigator Web browser is also due to start beta testing this week, company officials said.
Navigator 2.0 features support for electronic-mail capabilities and Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java scripting language. Navigator Gold is more powerful than Version 2.0 and includes Netscape's authoring language based on Java object-oriented technology. Mountain View, Calif.-based Netscape plans to ship four new products in December.
The products take Netscape further from its roots in simple Web browsers and toward more complicated products. The products will target information systems shops serious about building and administering internal and external Web sites, observers said.
In fact, browsers in general are quickly losing their glamour among hot, new Internet products despite their sizzle as recently as two or three months ago, said Richard Villars, an analyst at International Data Corp. in Framingham, Mass.
Browsers "are becoming a given. They're just another user interface that people expect with their applications," Villars said.
Spyglass Inc. in Naperville, Ill., for example, wants to line up as many resellers for its Enhanced Mosaic browser as it can, partly so it can focus on building and selling more sophisticated Internet products targeted at IS departments, a spokesman said.
While Spyglass doesn't plan to abandon the browser market, the firm wants to spread out to other parts of the Web, he said.
Last week, Spyglass added RSA Data Security Inc. in Redwood City, Calif., to its list of 35 reseller partners.
Development tools that help users create applications for the Web "are what we're really interested in now," said Art McAnarney, a senior programmer/analyst at Lockheed Martin Corp. in Littleton, Colo.
Lockheed, which expects to put 80,000 employees on the Internet by the end of the year, plans to evaluate Netscape's new products, McAnarney said. He said he is especially interested in Navigator 2.0's Java support.
"Java's a big deal to us," he said, explaining that Lockheed plans to use Java to create several new applications for internal Web sites throughout the company during the next year.
The relatively low price of Netscape's tools will draw users, Villars said. But Netscape isn't home free.
Oracle Corp., Next Computer Inc. and ParcPlace-Digitalk Inc., among other well-established tool companies, have announced plans to ship Web development products early next year.
[Copyright 1995 Computerworld (US), International Data Group Inc. All rights reserved.]