People have been using the Navigator 3.0 beta release for months, but Netscape Communications Corp yesterday unveiled the final release of its Internet browser, revealing new deals with Web publishers and a new facility – Internet Inbox, which enables Web pages to be sent as electronic mail messages. Netscape signed up some 26 publishers, including The New York Times, CBS Sports, Sony Music and HotWired, who will offer free and preferential deals for Navigator 3.0 users. Inbox, which veers close to the model popularized over the last six months by Pointcast Inc and other similar companies, will be able to deliver requested data from these and other sites and send it daily to a personal mail box on the Netscape home site. Navigator 3.0 integrates additional security and a set of Web-based applications. It is available for 16 different environments. The company insisted that the timing of the announcement had been set before Microsoft Corp’s plans for Explorer 4.0, unveiled last week, were known. However, Netscape was keen to talk about its own future directions in the light of the Microsoft strategy, which sees the browser becoming subsumed into the operating system. Galileo, its next-generation client, will be aimed at collaborative working, with a suite of network productivity applications designed for information sharing. It will also include more flexible layout and presentation facilities and forms functionality. And Netscape vice-president of technology Marc Andreessen is expected to reveal more about his own company’s plans to integrate Navigator more closely with a variety of operating systems over the next year when he talks at the Object World show in San Jose later this week. Navigator 3.0 is downloadable at http://home.netscape.com
