AOL's Netscape unit and its eponymous browser, which has also gone by the names Navigator and Communicator, have suffered such grievous casualties in the browser war that many analysts long ago wrote them off and declared the contest in favour of Microsoft. AOL itself played a key part in the upset, entering into a deal in 1996 that made IE the default browser for millions of its subscribers at a time when Microsoft badly lagged in market share. In exchange, the deal granted AOL inclusion in shipments of Microsoft's Windows operating system, a crucial distribution platform that survived even after AOL purchased Netscape for around $10bn in 1999. AOL is now a division of AOL Time Warner. Now it seems reports of Netscape's death have been greatly exaggerated. In a major step forward for an effort that many have long deemed irrelevant, Netscape-backed Mozilla plans to issue its first official software version within two weeks -- a release that will come after more than three years of development. The open-source Mozilla group lets anyone see and modify the original programming blueprints, or "source code," of the program. Further fuelling speculation of a Netscape comeback are tantalising hints from the media giant that it plans to use Mozilla's Gecko technology as the default for displaying Web pages within the AOL service. The company has been trying out Gecko in its CompuServe service since last year and began testing it within AOL 7.0 earlier this month. Nevertheless, AOL has not tipped its hand about its ultimate plans. "We've put significant resources into Gecko, and it's an excellent browser technology -- small, fast and standards-based," said AOL spokesman Jim Whitney. "But we just began the beta (recently), and it's too early to speculate" about incorporating it into AOL 8.0, which is due out this autumn. The stakes are high. AOL's Netscape tests come after the collapse of talks last year to extend the bundling deal. According to Microsoft, that deal ended in January 2001. AOL stuck with IE as its default browser even after the two companies failed to work out a new agreement and Microsoft dumped AOL from the latest version of the operating system, Windows XP. At that time, Microsoft also began considering folding the browser completely into the operating system, a step that would have dropped development for a stand-alone version of IE altogether. That plan was not adopted, but it spooked AOL executives sufficiently to begin casting around for a potential fallback, according to one source within the company. "Microsoft is backing away from support for a stand-alone browser," the source said. "If they're only going to develop for a browser tied to the OS, that's pretty significant...It would focus all browsing around the operating system." Playing by the standards rules
For now, Microsoft has taken a more conciliatory route. Even without the presence of a major competing browser, the software giant has made considerable strides toward incorporating standards set forth by groups such as the World Wide Web Consortium, according to company and standards experts. "Microsoft supports standards and will continue to do so," said a company representative. "In addition, the company has been at the forefront of efforts to evolve Web standards to benefit Web developers and users -- DHTML and XML are great examples of this." DHTML (Dynamic HTML) combines style sheets, scripts and HTML formatting commands to make Web pages more interactive, while XML (Extensible Markup Language) lets businesses easily exchange data between employees, customers, partners and suppliers. "Ultimately, though, the customer's needs will determine how these standards are implemented," the representative added. That viewpoint is supported by Zeldman, who said the overwhelming proportion of IE usage has undercut Microsoft's reputation for standards compliance in the Web developer community. "I suspect that many developers who tell you 'we code for IE5' simply mean they've abandoned (Microsoft's) Netscape 4 Layers, the IE4 DOM, etc. in favour of standards...(that) they are mistaking for proprietary Microsoft technologies," he said. However, Microsoft rivals and developers point to counterexamples that suggest the divide between IE and other standards compliant browsers goes deeper. In one high-profile dispute last fall, for example, Microsoft updated its popular MSN sites in a manner that locked out Web surfers using browsers other than IE -- and popped up an error message suggesting they switch their browser. Although Microsoft quickly backed down, the incident fuelled allegations that the software giant intended to use its market dominance to thwart the standards process. Competitors such as Opera Software, whose technology bore the brunt of the lockout, said AOL support for Mozilla-based technology such as Gecko would have an enormous effect on standards compliance over the long haul. "There will be fewer pages that use Microsoft's proprietary extensions and more pages that use standards," said Hakon Lie, Opera's chief technology officer. "There will be less detective work for our programmers, and our users will experience fewer problems." While that could be a long-term boon for IE rivals, Web developers said that gaps between Gecko and IE promise plenty of headaches. Lie, however, said a switch might eventually lead to more commonality between browsers, which in turn could loosen Microsoft's grip over the Web developer community. "If AOL successfully deploys Mozilla, the landscape will change," said Lie. "Authors will need to write browser-neutral pages and adhere more to standards. Mozilla has an impressive track record with standards -- almost as good as Opera -- and we welcome the competition."
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