Innovation from Netscape
September 6th, 2006I am listening to Dotnet Rocks and Stephen Forte was just explaining that the whole anti-trust case against Microsoft was just to prevent Microsoft from destroying Netscape. He goes on to explain that since they were not innovating to succeed they had to litigate. I am baffled by such a statement. Let's recount a few of the critical technologies which Netscape introduced which are now critical to the online economy and the modern web application.
- Cookies (1994)
- Javascript (1995)
- SSL (1996)
The first widely used version of Internet Explorer, version 3, was released in 1996. That should put the innovation at Netscape in some context.
Netscape also included a plugin model which allowed for multimedia plugins to provide content on a website, causing the popularity of the web to expand even faster than if it did not provide such support. At the time two of Microsoft's primary products were Word and Excel, which were clones of competitors, namely WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3. And while Microsoft did what they could to produce a superior product, it is far from pure innovation.
And keep in mind that Microsoft originally thought this whole web thing was just a fad. It was not until Netscape created these technologies which made the web a viable medium for doing business. Microsoft also accurately saw that cross-platform web applications would be a major threat to their Windows platform. True innovation requires seeing the potential in something which does not exist yet. Netscape had to demonstrate the value and become a threat before Microsoft took action.
There must have been the right combination of inspiration and talent at Netscape. And such an environment is rare and very difficult to recreate. If the same Netscape of the year 1999 were still alive and well today just imagine what roadblocks it would have allowed us to overcome. Would Bit Torrent already be integrated into the web browser? Would spam continue to spread like a plague? And would we be further along with so many others technologies?
It seems that Stephen Forte has a short memory. I wrote recently that I feel that Microsoft is on the verge, torn between becoming a great company deserving of respect and a brutal company guilty of destroying the innovative companies. I think it is important to remember that while Microsoft has great potential to do good, they must also be mindful of their destructive past so they do not repeat it.
