Should Netscape Go Public?

6. As an executive of Netscape, what would you recommend with respect to the proposed offering price? As an investor in Netscape, what would you recommend? AS a manager of an institutional fund who is willing to buy and hold Netscape’s stock at the originally proposed price of $14 per share, would you be willing to buy and hold at an initial offer price of $28.

The name was later changed to Netscape Communications Corporation when the University of Illinois (which owned the trademark on the name Mosaic) threatened legal action. Netscape can be considered an advocate for the dot com era. They were not the first internet start-up, but they were the only one that mattered. Netscape produced Netscape Navigator which went on to become its first widely popular internet application. Netscape Navigator became really popular after the launch of the World Wide Web. Netscape Navigator introduced millions to the web. SSL, Java, JavaScript, open APIs and support for online media were innovations that Netscape Navigator made relevant. The next best thing of Netscape was the Netscape IPO. It helped launch the internet era that we are currently living in. It is thought that Netscape was born in Silicon Valley, but actually it was in Champaign Urbana, Illinois at the University of Illinois. It all started with a bunch of young programmers and software developers hanging out in a basement. The group was called the software development group. These programmers and software developers were working for barely above minimum wage at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Aleks Totic and Jon Mittelhauser were a part of the group. Totic went on to develop Mac versions of both Mosaic and Netscape Navigator and Mittelhauser went on to develop the Windows

The internet has been the rise and fall of many entrepreneurs. For example, the rise and fall of the DOT-com. The DOT-com in a business whose main sail and advertisements are on the internet. DOT-coms are businesses like Yahoo.com and Ebay.com. In the early 1980’s the commercialization of the internet started. This allowed and promoted the DOT-com bubble. The reason so many thought that the DOT-com was a superior way of doing business is because the startup was lower, the rent space was less and you could do business easily with in America and worldwide. There were many other advantages that appealed to startup companies to help finance the DOT-com phenomenon.

The time is now 1995; the internet is slowly evolving, and just as the company survived the arrival of television and other technology so it must with the internet. Convinced the internet will have

In the 1990’s, an invention was created that is now used in everyday life, The World Wide Web also known as the WWW. In the year of 1990, Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web.It was invented in the United States and was later released to the public in 1991. The World Wide Web has become very important and people could not imagine a life without it. Overall, the World Wide Web has become very important to the world (Tim Berners-Lee).

The dot com era took off around 1997 and peaked in 2002, this idea like the name suggests was based off of large investments in internet tech companies whether they were profitable or not. Looking back, it’s easy too say that there was a lack of common sense or a lack of urgency to make money since it failed. Directly after Web 2.0 made its presents, and it wasn’t new software for computers or a site you can visit rather a time for social technology to improve. It was like an optimistic perception of a class being half full

A recurring point in Gilbert's studies included the notion that people were utterly incapable of making predictions that would lead to their actual optimal happiness. A study showed "that about nine out of ten people expect to feel more regret when they foolishly switch stocks than when they foolishly fail to switch stocks", but the study also showed that those "nine out of ten people are wrong" in assuming that expectation (Gilbert 135). A majority of consumers also made an incorrect assumption, as described by Stiglitz, which resulted in the maintenance and growth of one of the most well known monopolies of the present. The consumers assumed that, due to it's "near-monopoly on PC operating systems," Microsoft was a good and innovative company and is capable in handling computer systems. This was not the case when it came to "alternative technologies" such as the "development of the Internet and the web browser" because their competitor, Netscape, was "building on government-funded research" while Microsoft had no such incentive (Stiglitz 405). Microsoft then decided to launch their Internet Explorer, but by itself Internet Explorer could not compete against Netscape. They knew this, and so "decided to use its monopoly power in PC operating systems to make sure that the playing field was not level." They offered Internet Explorer for

to compete, so it opted to try to form a monopolistic trust in order to eliminate the competition. But to determine if Microsoft was attempting to violate the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, a trust must be defined. By definition, a trust is a combination of firms formed by legal agreement. While it may not be obvious to the average consumer, Microsoft, by trying to negotiate an agreement between the two businesses so it could have a better grip on web browsing, hints at wanting to form a trust between the two. Not many people had non-Windows systems so Microsoft would have the Netscape browser be offered to the minority of customers while making itself available to the masses. Microsoft would not directly gain money from Netscape, but its losing potential customers meant that Microsoft would gain more money indirectly.

“All of these qualities were evident in Gates’s nimble response to the sudden public interest in the Internet. Beginning in 1995 and 1996, Gates feverishly refocused Microsoft on the development of consumer and enterprise software solutions for the Internet, developed the Windows CE operating system platform for networking non computer devices such as home televisions and personal digital assistants, created the Microsoft Network to compete with America Online and other Internet providers, and through Gates’s company Corbis, acquired the huge Bett mann photo archives and other collections for use in electronic distribution.

First, Microsoft ‘encouraged’ Compaq, Apple, and other computer manufacturers to promote only Internet Explorer, and to make that the default browser on their PC. This encouragement came in the way of threats to eliminate or delay licensing of operating systems, providing the browser for free to internet access providers, and bundling the software with the operating system under the guise of interactive ease for the consumer. This manipulation led to an increase in the browser’s sales by 45 to 50%, which paralleled the decline Netscape experienced in their market sales in 1998.6

At the beginning , in “Browser Wars”, a brave bunch felt that they were going to be the only one’s to bring computer users the only browser, as Netscape. Microsoft showed then that they weren’t going to be left out of this genre matter what. Even though most of

While the server end of the financial systems are could be handled by strategic technology partner like Fiserv, the client end of Fiserv’s virtual banking system depended on third party solutions provided by web-browser development companies, like Netscape and Microsoft whose products were the dominant browsers, Netscape Browser and MS Internet Explorer, holding 24.68% and 75.31% of browser market share respectively (WebSideStory n.d.). Thus allowing Nexity to completely eliminate the cost of client-end development and pre-deploy their client-end to almost any computer which was used during 1999 to roam the internet, making Microsoft and Netscape a strategic partner as well.

Yahoo was an early success due to a combination of factors such as timing, hard work, and a good understanding of Web surfer’s tastes and needs.. In early 1995, Net mania was just flowering. It was a great time to be a young entrepreneur with an Internet idea. Dave Faldo and Jerry Yang saw a consumer need for classifying and differentiating web sights. Resting the urge to automate this process, Yahoo’s founders instead chose to manually perform this search, reviewing and classifying roughly 1000 sights a day. This approach combined with their decision to offer a free service lead to early success.

Business has thived on the internet, internet business are able to reach a wider market [2]"Through the internet, a business of any size can compete in the global marketplace. In fact, on the internet, the size of an organization's operation makes little difference because the internet is an open environment. " because anyone has access to the internet businesses can reach anyone also giving the customer a wider choice of products.

Following the success of Netscape and its web browser, Internet became a resource and communication platform idolized by many IT students in the universities. What started off as a hobby-cum-research[1] work by Jerry Yang (now Chief of Yahoo!) and David Filo (Co-founder of Yahoo!) for their Ph.D. dissertations; has evolved and became an Internet sensation over time. What they did was to compile all their favourite web links to form an online directory for easy navigation in the World Wide Web. The duo’s work immediately garnered a lot of attention from many surfers in the Internet world and before they realized it, Yahoo! became one of the most highly visited websites of all time. The duo saw the