FTP Software Inc of Andover, Massachusetts, is not happy with its Spyglass Inc Mosaic front-end Web tools, and is paying $10m for Network Computing Devices Inc’s Windows-based front-end Mariner Internet access business to replace them. The sale is a good one for Network Computing: it said Mariner is not generating the substantial revenues required to justify an ongoing annual investment of $2m to $3m for product development and marketing programmes. Network Computing will pay FTP a one-time fee of $2.5m for rights to Mariner and all future versions. Mariner’s development team will transfer to an FTP site in Santa Clara. Mariner is a $100 integrated Internet access tool claimed to enable users to access all Internet resources from a single application. It’s not a package of products but a single interface to services and protocols including electronic mail, news, file transfer protocol, relay chat, Gopher and Telnet, and includes an application programming interface set and development tool kit. Network Computing also licensed FTP’s Network File System client and server software for use in Windows95 and NT products under a separate pact FTP just formed a dedicated Internet unit and uses Open Market Inc’s back-end WebServer technology.
