While Netscape Communications Corp was reporting record figures (CI No 3,089), the National Center for Supercomputing Applications – whose Mosaic software accounted for nearly 100% of the browser market less than two years ago – has left the browser business. NCSA posted its final browser along with a note saying that the center, located at the University of Illinois in Urbana, Champaign, is redirecting its research efforts at things like tools for Java and collaborative work on the Web. Mosaic still ranks third in the browser market behind Netscape and Microsoft. NCSA will still receive income from the Mosaic license it sold to Spyglass, which hands over an estimated 7% of its income to the center. Spyglass licensed the technology to Microsoft for Explorer, but that revenue stream will dry up following a final $8m one-time payment under a deal Microsoft and Spyglass worked out last week.
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