Pop quiz: you’re a prominent browser vendor other than Microsoft Corp, and you’ve just spin-doctored your disgraceful financial results by means of highly questionable accounting practices (CI No 3,423). How do you keep the investors biting? If you’re Netscape, it’s easy enough. Just lock the usual suspects – friendly analysts, one or two flacks – into an all-day seminar with Jim Barksdale, Marc Andreessen and Mike Homer. Now that they have stars in their eyes, hit them with the latest version of your Glorious Five Year Plan. Make it snappy. Why not try converging portals with enterprise services providers? That’s three buzzwords for the price of one! What does it mean, exactly? Well, Netscape plans to optimize its browser for NetCenter content. When a user types a brand name into the location bar, Navigator will whisk them to relevant NetCenter areas or to an allied corporate site. On the back end, Bay Networks’ Contivity Extranet Switches will be bundled with Netscape Directory Server. Meanwhile customers running Netscape server software on Solaris will have a single co-branded point of contact for technical support. Cool! Here’s a surprise: new versions of SellerXpert and MerchantXpert are on their way. Oh, and Ford’s a big Netscape customer, sorry, enterprise service provider, and some independent software vendors (ISVs) have pledged their support. In other words, it means very little of substance. If anything, the point is that Netscape already sees itself as a software vendor to enterprise service providers, or ESPs. With NetCenter and the rare advantage of being able to set millions of browsers’ default home pages, the company is also a strong portal contender. If you accept that it exists, the ESP/portal crossover market is the only one Netscape can reasonably claim as its own. ESPs can build their own web hubs and link them to NetCenter, making everyone happy. Well, maybe. Now here’s the fun part. Sit back and accept praise for your visionary strategy. Crazy, but true. USA Today will headline its article: Netscape: Changes paying off. ABCNews.com will take an even more incisive stand, with the observation that Navigator’s new personalization tools: will provide access to up-to-the- minute news from ABCNews.com. The Aberdeen Group will speak of a powerful vision that repositions the company. The rest of us will wonder if maybe we snoozed through the good part.
