This blog has moved, Update your bookmarks.

I was reading the other day some history of Netscape, and I came across the typical take that Microsoft caused Netscape’s demise. The implication in all of these histories is that MS is bad and evil. I will admit that certain licensing rules that MS employed were not necessarily either fare or helpful to NS, but these actions can better be compared to pulling the plug on a brain dead patient and less to the motorcycle accident that spread the patients blood all over the pavement. (I will also admit that my previous analogy is a little more graphic than it need be, but I think it clearly gets my point across that MS’s licensing was more of something that ended something that was already dying.

When I started using the internet, I was running Window 3.1 and I had the amazing Netscape 1.0 installed. Shortly afterward, I upgraded to Netscape 2.0. I used this for a time and then upgraded to 2.2. This was not just my browser, but everyone in the family used it. Netscape 2.x was a fantastic browser for the time, and MS released its own browser Internet Explorer and it was not even worth using except in emergencies to download Netscape. That was the state of the web for a few years. When MS released IE3, it was a big step forward, but it wasn’t enough to make me or anyone who needed me to maintain their computers switch from NS. (I think it should be mentioned here that most people in the early to late nineties were either quite technically savvy or that they had someone technically savvy keeping their computers running. For example my mother wouldn’t know how to install IE or NS, and so I would do that for her and keep her up to date. This meant that if one person were to switch, generally quite a few people would end up switching.)

With both browsers in version 3, they were now more or less the same, but NS still had legions of fans. The version 4 browsers were both major steps forward feature wise, and were exciting new frontiers for the web. This is where Netscape made their biggest mistake, and it cost them everything. Netscape 4 was slow and buggy. Meanwhile IE4 was still as fast as or faster than IE3 or NS3. It was a giant step forward. I tried to continue with NS4, but it was not meant to be, and after reaching my limit of frustration, I tried IE4. It was better and I was happy. After a couple months, I was hooked and so everyone in my family switched too.

If you want to know the real root of Netscape’s problem, it goes to the huge success of NS3. They were making tons of money and they decided to increase output. They hired lots of people and many of the new managers had no idea how to make software or what it was. In the automotive industry, if I want to make more cars faster, I hire more people and magically more cars are created. In software magic works differently. If you hire lots more people, you will usually end up with a Netscape 4. You will have more people than work and they will end up doing stuff that will make the software slower, more buggy, and take a longer time to do it.

I know that this is a too anecdotal to prove my point, but this explanation for Netscape’s demise fits better with the timeline of when things happened. Also many people blame the bundling of IE with the OS for Netscape’s failing, but these people fail to factor in that at the time there where the tech savvy people who would routinely go and help people with their computers. This help always involved installing the latest version of Netscape, and then those people switched and it became installing the latest version of IE on people’s computers.

–Stefan