| Term Paper Title | Netscape Analysis Report |
| # of Words | 1053 |
| # of Pages (250 words per page double spaced) | 4.21 |
Netscape Analysis Report
I. History
Netscape Communications Corporation, originally named Mosaic
Communications Corporation (MCOM) was founded in April 1994 by Jim Clark and
Marc Andreessen. They released their first browser products free to Internet
users in September 1994. Jim Clark is chairman of Netscape Communications
Corporation. Before founding the company, Clark was the chairman of Silicon
Graphics, a computer hardware manufacturer he founded in 1982. Marc Andreessen
is vice president of technology for Netscape Communications. He helped develop
the original graphical World Wide Web browser, Mosaic, while he was at the
University Of Illinois at Urbana/Champlain.
The Internet is a global network connecting thousands of networks by use
of high speed digital lines called ATMs, T3s and T1s. It was just being
introduced to the general public at the time of Netscape's conception and they
would NOT have been successful if they had not had this timing advantage.
II. Location
Netscape's corporate headquarters are in Mountain View, California -- in
the heart of the Silicon Valley. However, due to the nature of the global
networks its software transmits over, Netscape is able to sell worldwide via the
Internet. There are virtually no walls to its "retail outlets." Its software
products are also distributed through computer stores worldwide.
III. Product Line
Netscape Navigator is a software program to browse information available
on the Internet. It is available for all common computer system platforms,
including 16-bit PC, 32-bit PC, Macintosh, and all UNIX systems. Navigator also
allows people to check their e-mail on the Internet through use of a password
(MIME) encoding scheme.
Netscape Server is a piece of software that installs on UNIX and Windows
NT based systems that allows serving of data on the Internet's World Wide Web.
It also provides for secure transactions such as those involving credit cards.
IV. Corporate Structure
The founders, Jim Clark and Marc Andreessen, own 35% of the company.
There are other major shareholders, and it is also publicly held. The board of
directors and other executive management are listed in the following table:
James H. Clark- Chairman of the Board
James L. Barksdale- President, Chief Executive Officer and Director
Marc L. Andreessen- Vice President, Technology and Director
Peter L.S. Currie- Vice President and Chief Financial Officer
Conway Rulon-Miller-Vice President, Sales and Field Operations
Michael J. Homer- Vice President, Marketing
Roberta R. Katz-Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary
Richard M. Schell- Vice President, Engineering
James C.J. Sha- Vice President and General Manager, Integrated
Applications
Kandis Malefyt- Vice President, Human Resources
L. John Doerr- Director
John E. Warnock- Director
V. Competition
Netscape has 4 major competitors: Spry Mosaic, Spyglass Mosaic, Microsoft
Internet Explorer, and Sun's HotJava. However, Netscape dominates its market
with an approximate 80% market share. It is the current industry standard for
WWW browsing software, due to its support of new HTML features such as frames,
JavaScript, and plug-ins.
Spry Mosaic is a piece of WWW Browser software designed by CompuServe's
Spry division. It poses no threat to Netscape because of its inability to
process e-mail and Usenet news.
Spyglass Mosaic is a WWW browser developed by part of the team that
worked on the origina...Read entire document
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