Resumen
The article presents information on the Netscape Communications Corp.'s business development strategies. Netscape was established in April 1994 by Jim Clark, the founder of Silicon Graphics, Inc., and Marc Andreessen, a recent graduate of the University of Illinois where he had led the team of hacker programmers that built Mosaic, the first mass-market browser for the Web. In 1997, Netscape encountered serious business problems. After peaking at close to 90% in early 1996, Netscape's browser share began to erode after Microsoft Corp. bundled its Internet Explorer browser in Windows 95. By late 1997, Netscape's browser, then with no more than 50% of the market, was falling steadily. In November 1998, Netscape management agreed reluctantly to a $4.3 billion takeover by America Online, Inc., which also simultaneously entered into a $1.25 billion agreement with Sun Microsystems Inc., to help market Netscape's software and manage its software divisions. The three way deal was approved by the U.S. Department of Justice in March 1999. In the future, there are expectations that America Online's alliance with Sun will put even more pressure on Netscape's cross-platform strategy. Most important in this case, it seems that Netscape's successful business strategy still required compromises in design, such as mixing cross-platform code with tailored code to ensure its products could keep delivering competitive performance. INSET: Netscape Design Techniques.