Browser Wars: Fright of the Navigator

A couple of years ago, Netscape?s Navigator was well ahead in the race for the browser market share. But now, Microsoft Explorer is inching into the lead. Nick Farrell reports

Industry watchdogs hate the thought of Microsoft being a winner and laughed when Bill Gates had to take back his views that the Web would never be big. Yet only a year after Gates? conversion, Microsoft has managed to secure itself a significant share of the UK browser market. It seems that we have been here before.

The Web trends site, run by Interse, records the type of browsers that access its page. For two years the site has been considered a reliable guide to what is happening in the world of the browser wars. Until August 1995, the figures recorded at the site were as dull as a football match where only one team had shown up. Netscape reigned supreme, holding 72 per cent of the market.

Microsoft?s entry into the market in 1995 started at one per cent (made at the expense of the other browsers), but by December 1996 it held 33 per cent of the market to Netscape?s 54 per cent. A look at the graphs shows Microsoft?s dominance increasing as Netscape?s star slowly sets.

ISPs in this country believe the market share for browsers should show an even more dominant position for Microsoft. Most have dumped relationships with Netscape in favour of Microsoft. Former Cix director of sales and marketing Jennifer Perry says the ISPs were relieved to see the end of Netscape?s virtual monopoly of the browser market. ?The fact was that Netscape was not pleasant for us to deal with. I don?t think they were really interested in the ISPs,? she says.

It was as if Netscape did not really care about working for its market share in those days. An ISP that wanted the best browser had to go to them or risk complaints from its users when other browsers failed to get into Netscape-designed Web pages.

?We would have liked someone like Oracle to come up with a browser to compete with Navigator, but in the end it was Microsoft ... we would have preferred that it wasn?t, but then they turned out to be quite good to work with,? Perry says.

One of the ace cards that Microsoft could offer to ISPs opting for Explorer was that it could place their details in the shell of Windows 95. This means that a customer, having installed Windows 95, can select Microsoft as their ISP and have a wizard set up the connection for them and generate a new account. Effectively, this means that Windows 95 can refer its customers to ISPs.

This was why Compuserve dropped Navigator so soon after signing a deal with Netscape, and set up its members with Explorer. Compuserve?s own internal network is moving to Microsoft NT servers, based around a Normandy platform. Microsoft?s argument is that its products are more compatible with each other than Netscape.

Demon Internet found that although technologically there was little difference between the two browsers, Microsoft was prepared to do other little deals that smoothed the way for Demon to accept Explorer.

Demon marketing manager James Gardiner says Microsoft allowed a copy of Explorer to be placed on the Demon site to enable its members and others in the UK to download it. ?This saved us a considerable amount of transatlantic bandwidth which would have been wasted downloading copies. It is a very small thing, but Netscape did not want to do it,? he says. Customer service was also a lot better ? when a part of Explorer code clashed with Demon?s own setup, Microsoft had a patch sent to Demon in just a few hours.

Explorer scores over Netscape in that it can automatically install add-ins, making it easier to upgrade. But the greatest difference is the price of the product. Explorer has very few charges associated with it, but Netscape has always levied charges against its users. In a world where ISPs are struggling to keep their prices low, this is a much-needed respite.

Gardiner says that ISPs had to keep a balance between buying the cheapest and the best. It was fortunate that there was no question that the latest version of Explorer was simpler to use than Navigator 2 (which was then the standard).

The effect of buttering up the ISPs was that it gave Microsoft access to most of the home users who were more inclined to go for packaged alternatives. Demon alone had 70,000 copies of the program. Perry did not believe those figures would move the US-based Netscape at all. ?Like a lot of American companies they tend to see Europe as a bit of a backwater. The numbers over here are too small to interest them,? she says.

But the numbers must have got more interesting as multi-national ISP giants like Uunet have also started to jump away from Netscape.

Uunet channel group manager Martin Temple says Netscape seems to have ?lost the plot? in this country, particularly in the intranet market. He believes it is the intranet market where Microsoft is picking up the big customers at the expense of Netscape.

?With intranets, compatibility is a crucial issue. Now, if people are running mostly Microsoft products, it is much more likely they will opt to run their intranet using a compatible browser from Microsoft too,? he says.

?It would be a brave dealer who recommended a client buy something when they could have it for free. Particularly if that product would be less likely to be compatible with the rest of

the software on their intranet. If you want the configuration tools for your intranet, Netscape will charge #1,500, but Microsoft will give you them for free, so why would anyone do that?? he adds.

The only situation where an intranet would be better run on Navigator would be if it was running on Unix or X-Windows technology. However, as the use of Windows NT systems is growing, it is more likely that these customers will default to Explorer.

Earlier this year, Netscape began to fight back with the rollout of Communicator, a package of integrated software aimed much more at intranet users. But Temple notes that although Netscape?s latest product to take on Explorer was good and focused, it is a case of too little, too late.

But Netscape?s, marketing manager (Europe) Eric Beroussard denies his company is on the ropes and points to figures that show Netscape is holding 80 per cent of the market. ?Indications are that Microsoft has not been able to move in as quickly as people thought it would,? he says.

He goes on to argue that Netscape?s ability to handle all network platforms, whether Unix or NT, made it a much better option for the crucial intranet market. ?We run on a totally integrated NT platform, but most people have heterogeneous networks with NT and Unix. We can give them things like uniform browsers, single directories, and single passwords. How can you run Explorer if you have a Unix server in your network??

?Netscape is the underdog in the UK. We are a smaller company than Microsoft, which has huge investments in Europe and a good channel. But everyone is happy that Netscape is more successful overall ? no question about it.? He is keen to point out that not all ISPs have moved to Explorer and uses Virgin Internet as an example of one major ISP which has not jumped ship.

Microsoft European Explorer marketing manager Jeremy Gittins admits that Netscape had been able to market its cross-platform capabilities successfully, but says that in reality, there are few places that Navigator can go that Explorer cannot. ?They are also underestimating the development of NT which is growing very strongly,? he says.

As would be expected, Gittins writes off Communicator as simply repackaged and slightly re-engineered older products under a single banner. ?Netscape has become a marketing company, there is nothing that new in Communicator,? he says.

He is confident that, despite Netscape?s claims, Microsoft and Netscape will have an equal market share in the UK by the middle of the year, although given the extraordinary rate of change in this market it would be foolish to assume that the war is anywhere near over.