Netscape Communications Corp is continuing to stake out its position as the corporate internet and intranet browser and server software competitor to Microsoft Corp by claiming 200 so- called design wins for its product range in the Global 2000 – a figure it wants to raise to 700, though within an undisclosed time frame. This at a strategy conference held nearby its Mountain View HQ Tuesday, when the company outlined the message that it is now concentrating on three ways of linking people and businesses together. These are to ‘wire every enterprise’ (meaning primarily encouraging more deployment of full-service intranets via its Communicator and SuiteSpot 3.0 products); ‘link businesses to one another’ (as in so-called Extranets, offering as an example a win for its Netscape CommerceXpert software at Bell Canada’s Emergis subsidiary by its spin-off/joint-venture with GE Information Services Inc, Actra Business Systems LLC, formed in April 1996); and ‘link millions of people to businesses’ (using the internet, citing its CommercXpert family of transaction handling software and its recently announced Netcenter site, which it wants to become a virtual community for the top 30% of internet users, or an ‘AOL for business’). The company also highlighted hopes for expanded consulting and systems integration work in these areas with its newly-formed Professional Services arm under IBM ISSC veteran Randy Favero; 27% of business for its second quarter came from services, with around 50% of total sales coming from indirect as opposed to direct sales channels.
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