Microsoft Turns Up Heat On Netscape Software Giant Hopes To Increase Market Share With New Browser
Microsoft Corp. Tuesday will release a new version of its Internet browsing software, part of its strategy of trouncing Netscape Communications Corp.
Microsoft will kick off the unveiling Monday night with events in more than 20 cities, including Boston, Seattle, Atlanta and Washington. The main event is in San Francisco, where the company will host developers, business customers and analysts.
The software is the third version of Microsoft’s year-old Internet Explorer that lets computer users navigate the World Wide Web. It represents the biggest changes between versions, and more important, puts Microsoft’s browser on par technically with Netscape’s market-leading Navigator.
“This is another impressive step along the way of becoming a bigger - perhaps soon the biggest - player in the market,” said Ted Julian, an analyst at researcher International Data Corp.
Internet Explorer has lagged Navigator, the first widely-accepted commercial browsing software.
Netscape, in response, has sped up development and is rushing to release the third version of its browser in 20 months. Navigator 3.0 is due out during the next two weeks.
Both browsers now offer many of the same features, including three-dimensional graphics, audio and electronic mail. They also can read programs written in Sun Microsystems Inc.’s Java language and have so-called collaboration technology that lets people exchange, work on and discuss documents together.
Where they differ is in how easy many of these things are to use. Internet Explorer 3.0 has been redesigned and is easier to use than earlier versions. Its collaboration software, called NetMeeting, is more sophisticated and lets more than two people work together, while Navigator 3.0 is limited to two.
Explorer also includes ActiveX, technology used to jazz up Web pages that is based on older Microsoft technology called OLE and aimed at competing with Java.
Navigator 3.0, meantime, copies information from the Internet faster than Internet Explorer does. It has stronger security technology for sending information across the Internet and includes easier-to-use technology for e-mail and on-line discussions.
The changes Netscape has made between versions are less dramatic than those made by Microsoft, analysts said. In Navigator’s favor, it can be used with more operating systems, including Windows 3.1, NT and 95, UNIX and Apple Computer Inc.’s Macintosh. Internet Explorer is available for Windows 95 and NT.
In a sense, these most recent versions of the browsing software are almost passe. The two rivals already are working on the next updates of the browsers, which represent radically different paths.
Microsoft plans to include the next version of its browser directly in the Windows operating system, making it into a way to navigate through the program at the same time it creates links to the Internet. The operating system update, code-named Nashville, is slated for release in the first quarter of 1997.
Netscape now has about 75 percent of the market, with more than 38 million people using its browser. Microsoft expects that to change this fall because of Internet Explorer 3.0 and when licensing agreements with AT&T Corp., America Online Inc. and CompuServe Corp. kick in.
“By lining up distribution channels like these, Microsoft is on the way to making inroads,” said Josh Bernoff, an analyst at Forrester Research Inc., a market researcher.