browsers. Spyglass had the rights, ironically, to the original Mosaic developed at the University of Illinois by Marc Andreessen and his cohorts, while Booklink had developed its own system. To make maters more complicated, Netscape had just taken this new name in the fall of 1994. It had originally been called Mosaic Communications, a name to which the University of Illinois violently objected. In addition to changing the name of the company to Netscape Communications Corporation, Clark and Andreessen had had to pay $2.7 million in damages,which was split between the university and Spyglass, according to James Wallace.
----
M ost media today is financed through advertising, and I expect the Internet to follow this same pattern. But interactivity is an advantage that Net advertising will have over the traditional kind. The initial message will need only to attract attention. Users will be able to click on ads to get additional information, and advertisers will be able to measure how often viewers are doing so. Accurate measurement of advertising’s effectiveness has been a long time coming, and the Internet will finally provide it.
—B ILL G ATES , 1996
----
Microsoft came close to making a deal with Booklink for its browser, but the tough terms caused Booklink to switch at the last moment to an offer from America Online. Microsoft now was placed in a difficult position. It was clear that in order to have a browser as part of Windows 95 (already twice delayed) for its August 1995 release, it would have to license a browser and incorporate it in a somewhat changed form into Windows 95 instead of developing one from scratch. Bill Gates finally signed the contract with Spyglass on December 16, 1994.
By the time Windows 95 came out in August of 1995, Netscape was sufficiently well established that it has been able to remain a major player in the browser market. But by turning his company around in a single year to take advantage of the Internet phenomenon, Bill Gates was able to see to it that his company did not miss out entirely on this important turn in the road. Gates himself has become one of the foremost promoters of the Internet, more than making up for his initial lack of focus with a broad vision of the Internet’s place in the future development of computer technology. Indeed, in a step that nicely completed the circle, Microsoft made a sizable but undisclosed investment in July 1997 in another Seattle area company, Progressive Networks. The company specializes in enabling software for Web-based audio presentations and very low-speed video. The company was founded by and is headed by none other than Ron Glaser, the former Microsoft executive who worked so diligently to make Microsoft executives fully aware of the importance of the Internet.
CHAPTER FIVE
TOUGH COMPETITION
----
J ust because somebody with a calculator recently deemed me the richest businessman in the world doesn’t mean that I’m a genius. My success in business has largely been the result of my ability to focus on long-term goals and ignore short-term distractions. Taking a long-term view doesn’t require brilliance, but it does require dedication.
—B ILL G ATES , 1995
----
No one in the business world can become as successful and as powerful as Bill Gates has without acquiring enemies. And Gates has many enemies. Few of them seem to care all that much about his enormous wealth; most of them have made fortunes themselves and have, like Gates, started giving money away. They do not begrudge Gates his success in the usual envious terms, either. What makes some of them very angry is that they believe Microsoft, because of its market dominance in operating software, which began with MS-DOS and became even greater with the Windows series, is able to squeeze companies with better systems into a marginal position and put them out of business entirely. It is, ultimately, the power to do that which creates the anger.
It is hardly
----
M ost media today is financed through advertising, and I expect the Internet to follow this same pattern. But interactivity is an advantage that Net advertising will have over the traditional kind. The initial message will need only to attract attention. Users will be able to click on ads to get additional information, and advertisers will be able to measure how often viewers are doing so. Accurate measurement of advertising’s effectiveness has been a long time coming, and the Internet will finally provide it.
—B ILL G ATES , 1996
----
Microsoft came close to making a deal with Booklink for its browser, but the tough terms caused Booklink to switch at the last moment to an offer from America Online. Microsoft now was placed in a difficult position. It was clear that in order to have a browser as part of Windows 95 (already twice delayed) for its August 1995 release, it would have to license a browser and incorporate it in a somewhat changed form into Windows 95 instead of developing one from scratch. Bill Gates finally signed the contract with Spyglass on December 16, 1994.
By the time Windows 95 came out in August of 1995, Netscape was sufficiently well established that it has been able to remain a major player in the browser market. But by turning his company around in a single year to take advantage of the Internet phenomenon, Bill Gates was able to see to it that his company did not miss out entirely on this important turn in the road. Gates himself has become one of the foremost promoters of the Internet, more than making up for his initial lack of focus with a broad vision of the Internet’s place in the future development of computer technology. Indeed, in a step that nicely completed the circle, Microsoft made a sizable but undisclosed investment in July 1997 in another Seattle area company, Progressive Networks. The company specializes in enabling software for Web-based audio presentations and very low-speed video. The company was founded by and is headed by none other than Ron Glaser, the former Microsoft executive who worked so diligently to make Microsoft executives fully aware of the importance of the Internet.
CHAPTER FIVE
TOUGH COMPETITION
----
J ust because somebody with a calculator recently deemed me the richest businessman in the world doesn’t mean that I’m a genius. My success in business has largely been the result of my ability to focus on long-term goals and ignore short-term distractions. Taking a long-term view doesn’t require brilliance, but it does require dedication.
—B ILL G ATES , 1995
----
No one in the business world can become as successful and as powerful as Bill Gates has without acquiring enemies. And Gates has many enemies. Few of them seem to care all that much about his enormous wealth; most of them have made fortunes themselves and have, like Gates, started giving money away. They do not begrudge Gates his success in the usual envious terms, either. What makes some of them very angry is that they believe Microsoft, because of its market dominance in operating software, which began with MS-DOS and became even greater with the Windows series, is able to squeeze companies with better systems into a marginal position and put them out of business entirely. It is, ultimately, the power to do that which creates the anger.
It is hardly
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