Microsoft Tried To Buy Netscape: Suppose They Had?

Glyn Moody writes "In an interview, Brendan Eich, the creator of JavaScript and currently CIO at Mozilla, reveals that Microsoft tried to buy Netscape at the end of 1994. They were turned down because the offer was too low, but imagine if Netscape had accepted: no browser wars, no open Web standards, no Mozilla, no Firefox. How might the Web — and the world — have looked today if that had happened?"

Fallacy

[Literaphile]

no browser wars, no open Web standards, no Mozilla, no Firefox.

That's a pretty slippery slope. Obviously there probably would have been no Mozilla or Firefox, but who's to say that another browser wouldn't have emerged to start a war, or push open web standards? This is why "what if" scenarios are inherently stupid and pointless: they force you to suppose that nothing else will have changed, but that's not true. Likely another browser would have emerged to fill the void and encourage competition.

Re:Who Cares

[Doc Ruby]

Learning from the past by asking "what if?" is important.

Maybe not to you. So ignore the story. But to others. Whose insights contribute to the world you live in. Sure, you're a freeloader, but at least don't get in their way.

Some nerds are really dumbdowners.

Re:Too low? Wars would have still happened.

[Doc Ruby]

How did it work out? Instead of taking Microsoft's lowball offer, Netscape had a $half-billion IPO, the biggest of all time, and the one that still defines "big IPO" a decade and a half (and two or three bubbles) later. Then Netscape was bought by AOL for even more scads of money, which let AOL do to Netscape what Microsoft wanted for less money. So, given the equivalent other results, turning down Microsoft made Netscape's shareholders (including the corporation itself) a lot more money.

But the results were not equivalent. Instead, Netscape forced the Internet to be cross-platform in ways that outlasted even Netscape Inc. According to its own agenda, not Microsoft's (extremely limited and lame one). And Netscape Inc lasted years longer, producing major innovations like Netscape Commerce Server and Netscape Directory Server (among others). Which again set the direction of the entire Internet for at least the next decade and a half (and counting).

In every way you can consider Netscape did the right thing. What could you possibly have been thinking was bad for "Netscape the Company" by turning down Microsoft?

Re:Doesn't matter

[kelemvor4]

It's only possible today because of the current state of the Web. A web locked-down by Microsoft from 1994 up to today would have resulted in a locked-down network where only Microsoft products are allowed to access it, ActiveX everywhere, etc.

Heck, don't people remember those IE-only websites? That wasn't even a decade ago!

Just be glad that Netscape didn't sell out.

A decade ago? How about an hour ago while I was in the office..... IE only websites are definitely NOT a thing of the past yet.

Re:Who Cares

[nedlohs]

It isn't learrning from the past. It is making stuff up and then launching into wild conjecture from that fictional starting point.

Re:Who Cares

[bloodhawk]

The problem is that this "what if" is extremely dumb and started from a flawed premise "no browser wars, no open Web standards", At the time this all started up there was a miriad of browsers out there, however between the 2 propriety browsers of Microsoft and Netscape they killed them all off, the truth is we will never know whether the browser wars were beneficial or detrimental to the web eco system, perhaps without that war all the other browsers would have have flourished into a vibrant and stable eco-system bringing about a web nirvana instead of withering and dying, we will never know and don't have enough information to make usefull "what if" statements to learn from the past in this case.

Re:Doesn't matter

[qubezz]

We would have had a $50 web browser with web technology protected by 73 Netscape [uspto.gov] patents acquired by Microsoft (including blatantly obvious patents they could exploit elsewhere, such as one for just making a menu bar hide [google.com], or showing how complex a password is while you type it in [uspto.gov] - used by many sites right now)

Re:Fallacy

[scubamage]

Lynx existed, and that's all I needed.