Lack of innovation killed a Giant
Netscape is dead. It was know to the public late 2007 that Netscape as we know it as about to shut down, and the date for the official shutdown was set to February 1.st 2008.
If you have been around for a while, you might remember the time when Netscape was synonymous with the graphical web, the HTTP/HTML part of the web. Actually, if you have been around since 1993 (thats when I got to know the Internet), there was the Gopher web, and the FTP sites that dominated the Web, in addition to HTTP/HTML based web. Anyhow, Netscape WAS the internet at that time. And Netscape was the primary driver towards the graphical, contents rich HTTP/HTML web. But not anymore.
My personal analysis of what has happened to Netscape is:
- Lack of innovation
- Not being able to attract the best people
Significant innovation on the web browser arena has taken place in the open source Firefox, and in companies like Opera and Microsoft with the major Internet Explorer. These companies & organizations managed to sustain innovation, attract skilled people and dominate the market in their slightly different ways.
No matter how much of a tech-giant someone can be; without significant innovation and truly innovative and smart people, giants fall over and eventually dies. In this case, a rather silent and unnoticed death. But still. Netscape is dead.