5 years ago... Microsoft browser overtakes Netscape rival

NEWS 14.07.98 Microsoft's Internet Explorer has finally overtaken Netscape Navigator in the browser popularity contest. Zona Research's annual report on the browser war reveals that 55 per cent of the 250 IT professionals surveyed had a policy that specified Internet Explorer as the browser of choice. Only 45 per cent specified Navigator, a drop from last year's figure which credited the company with 55 per cent of the market. 14.07.03: By this stage everyone knew the game was up in 'the browser wars' of the late 1990s but who would have guessed what was to happen next. Microsoft, largely though not entirely on the back of its browser tactics spent years in anti-trust proceedings, and Netscape was to wither. Its eventual break-up and sale to AOL and Sun saw that its server software continued to be successful - and by 1998 it had already become the company's major cash generator - but browser competition pretty much ceased. These days there are some alternatives, including Opera and Mozilla (open source Navigator) but as Marc Andreessen, one of the men behind the birth of the modern web browser and Netscape, recently told silicon.com: "The browser was an experiment. But these days, with no competition, there's no innovation." Or at least there isn't as much of an incentive.