Pared-down browser to compete with Microsoft
September 15, 1997 — Netscape is developing one of the thinnest Web clients yet, a container for JavaBeans that will render images and content based on the types of data being accessed.
Described as an HTML-rendering Bean, the pared-down browser is part of Netscape’s plan to offer Web clients that can be used on every flavor of hardware client, from new NCs to old PCs.
For example, the client will run on x486 models that have limited disk space and about 8 megabytes of RAM. That is possible because the client downloads JavaBeans that contain only the code necessary for the specific type of information the user needs.
The Beans that will make such devices work will be stored in an open library on the newly inaugurated Netscape Netcenter on the company’s home site, explained Marc Andreessen, senior vice president for technology at Netscape.
“We want 100 percent coverage on all devices. We can target all the successful devices. And 99 percent of the stuff you want is on the network,” Andreessen said last week at a daylong gathering of press members and analysts. “Netcenter is the aggregation point for Beans that come down on the fly as needed.”
The new client, due in a prerelease form by year’s end, will be distinct from the so-called Javagator 100% Pure Java browser that Netscape and Sun are co-developing and which is expected by April 1998.
Netscape is developing its server-centric, thin-client paradigm with a keen eye on competing with Microsoft, which is tying its Internet Explorer browser closely with its 32-bit Windows operating systems.
“We have to hurt [Microsoft] in their business model, which is the upgrade model,” said John Paul, senior vice president and general manager at Netscape’s server products division.
Netscape’s concept, however, was met by muted enthusiasm by one enterprise administrator.
“We’ve upgraded most of our PCs already and don’t have any need to salvage older PCs,” said Win Cody, CIO of The Copeland Companies, a unit of The Travelers Group, in East Brunswick, N.J.
By offering Web clients for any number of heterogeneous corporate desktops, Netscape hopes to promote a four-tier enterprise architecture that relies, not surprisingly, on Netscape’s server products and suites.
Netscape is building upgraded servers that use its Directory Server as a pivot for what it calls Crossware Applications, Paul said. Crossware is described as an application that runs across firewalls among several companies to allow for multisite Internet commerce.
A Crossware Application Server, based on Enterprise Server 3.0, is being designed to allow such applications to be served securely among several companies that form an extranet, Paul said. The distributed process, he added, becomes very dependent on the directory server.
“You need the directory to authenticate the user throughout the process and across the various servers,” Paul said, adding that the process works with third-party directory servers as well.
Netscape’s rhetoric smacks of a self-serving model, according to Ezra Gottheil, an analyst at the Hurwitz Group, in Newton, MA.
“Netscape wants to be your server vendor. Crossware is a good marketing term, rather than a real category of products,” Gottheil said.
Netscape Communications Corp., in Mountain View, CA, can be reached at (650) 254-1900 or https://www.netscape.com.
