Homework2

General Info

Ashley Joseph and Claire Wang

Claire Wang's Website Outline

Back to INTERNET HISTORY TIMELINE page, click ==> https://github.com/clairenjit369/IS601_HW02_part02.git

A summary of the Browser Wars between Microsoft and Netscape. I want people to understand that Netscape was the first to make a user-friendly web browser and Microsoft followed after them. However, Microsoft quickly captured the web browser market because of the monoploy it created with its PCs.

I will goes into a summary of what browser wars, the history of the first browser, and finally explain how the browser wars happened.

Website General Info

1. Navigator was the first commerically successful web browser and it brought the average person to the world wide web. However, Microsoft Explorer forced Navigator out the web browser market space.
2. KEYWORDS= Browser Wars, Microsoft Explorer, Navigator, Netscape, Mosaic
3. WEBSITE TITLE= Browser Wars: How Microsoft Explorer defeated Navigator
4. PAGE TITLE= Browser Wars
5. HERO TEXT= Microsoft Explorer created a monoploy to dominate the web browser market
6. Menu= Homepage, What are Web Browsers?, Navigator vs. Explorer

Page 1

1. Menu Link= Browser Wars, What are Web Browsers?, Navigator vs. Explorer
2. Page Title = Browser Wars
3. Description= Windows was considered a giant in the tech world but a new company known as Netscape proved to be a challenge. Netscape, launched Naviagator, the first commerically successful web browser. Bill Gates did not see the potential for a web browser and ignored Netscape until they grew to be a threat. Bill Gates realized he needed to create a web browser to compete with Navigator and this launched the start of the Browser Wars, where each company was trying to compete for the market share.
4. Keywords= Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Bill Gates
5. Page Layout= Z layout
6. Page content= Web browsers brought the general public to the World Wide Web and access all the web pages. The first web browser that was commerically successful was Navigator, owned by the company Netscape. Bill Gates followed after Navigator's footsteps and created Microsoft Internet Explorer. Bill Gates did not plan on making a web browser or competing with Netscape. He originally wanted to focus on making personal computers (PC) for the public but when he noticed the success of Naivgator, he had no choice but to make his own. The war started when company differences bled into their products and eventually made it's way into the web browser market.
   
7. Page image=
8. Side bar content 1= Brief bio about Bill Gates and Marc Andreessen
9. Side bar text 1= Bill Gates was the CEO of Microsoft. He had the ambitious dream and providing everyone with a PC. This would become a reality because Gates was a giant in the tech world and felt more powerful than the president.
10. Side bar image 1=
11. Side bar text 2= Marc Andreeson, helped create Mosaic, in 1993, the first graphical web browser. It had images, audio, and other factors to make the webs surfing more user-friendly. Mosaic would eventually turn into Navigator, the first commerically successful web browser.
12. Side bar image 2 =

Page 2

1. Menu Link= Browser Wars, What are Web Browsers?, Navigator vs Internet Explorer
2. Page Title= What are Web Browsers?
3. Description= In order to understand the Browser Wars, people need to understand the importance of web browsers. They will also need to understand the difference between the internet, World Wide Web, and Web Browsers.
4. Keywords= Web Browsers, Mosaic, World Wide Web, Internet
5. Page Layout= F layout
6. Page content=

It's important to understand what web browsers are before understanding the Browser Wars. To first understand what a web browser is, let's differentiate between the Internet, World Wide Web, Web server and Web Browsers.

• Internet= is a global network of connected computers. The internet was created during the 1960s when the US government, and it grew out of a research program called ARPANet or the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network.
  
• World Wide Web= a network of websites. Founded by Tim Berner's Lee in 1980, he noticed that webpages could be connected to each other like a web. This is an application built on the internet to access, create, and view websites.
  
• Web server= a computer that holds one or more websites. The web server will send any webpage from a particular website to the user that requested that web page.
  
• Web Browser= A software that allows a person to access the World Wide Web and view all the webpages. When a user rquests a web page, the web browser retrieves the necessary files from the web server and then displays the content.
  

Now let's move onto the history of the web browser. The first web browser could be attributed to the WWW because it allowed people to view all the webpages. In the case of the Browser Wars, the 'first' web browser to be discussed would be Mosaic. Mosaic was created in 1993 by Marc Andeerssen and Eric Bina. Both were computer science students who had experience with working on the internet. At this point, a few web browsers existed but it was only in certain circles of computer science professional because it was expensive and it worked on certain devices.

Marc Andeerssen wanted a web browser that was user friendly, meaning he wanted something easy to use and see. Mosaic was credited as the first web browser that brought more people to the World Wide Web because it was easy to use. Mosaic was also the first to include images embedded in the web pages which made it pleasing to it users. Additionally, future web browsers were built off Mosaic's application.
8) Side Bar content= an image of how Mosaic looked like.
9) Side bar image 1=

Page 3

1. Menu Link= Browser Wars, What are Browsers?, Navigator vs Internet Explorer
2. Page Title= Navigator vs Internet Explorer
3. Description= Mosaic led the way for Navigator to emerge. Mirosoft didn't see the importance of web browsers until they saw Navigator's success. This pushed them to take a new look at making web browsers. The war happened because of the difference of attitudes from each company. Microsoft offered to buy Netscape but from Netscape's perspective, it was condescending and belittling. This animosity would lead each company into the Browser War.
4. Keywords= Mosaic, Navigator, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Bill Gates
5. Page Layout: F layout
6. Page Content: Figure 1.

James Clark, was a wealthy investor and he saw the potential of Mosaic and funded it. James Clark and Andreessen named their company Netscape, and continued to innovate Mosaic. On October 13, 1994 Netscape cast Navigator and it was a success, creating the Internet Age. After Navigator reached a million downloads, Gates finally realized the error of his ways and realized that his company needed to match and defeat Netscape. Bill Gates ignored Netscape until this point because he was more focused on making sure that the public used his line of personal computers.

Gates was a giant in the tech world because of his control on personal computers and competitors either lost to Microsoft or they were bought by Microsoft.

This would be a foreshadow of what would happen to Netscape. So, on June 1995 Microsoft and Netscape sat down for a meeting to talk about future endeavors. To this day, no one really knows what happened here but whatever the case, there were two different sides. From Microsoft's point of view, they were generous to buy Netscape and all of its existing applications. From Netscape's point of view, it was belittling because Microsoft didn't give them a big enough paycheck to justify buying their entire business so they turned Microsoft down. This difference in attitudes pushed each company to create/improve their web browsers to beat each other.

On August 1995, Netscape went public and was extemely successful. James Clark made around $600 million dollars and everyone else made millions of dollars as well. Unfortunately, this success made Marc Andreessen bad mouth Bill Gates and his company. This was a mistake because they made Bill Gates focus his entire energy on defeating Netscape. A couple of days after Navigator went public, Microsoft released its web browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 1. This web browser was built on the code that Marc Andreessen made for Mosaic. Compared to its competitor, Internet Explorer didn't stand a chance as a competitor.

However, on December 7, 1995, the same day as when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Bill Gates held a conference announcing the launch of Internet Explorer Version 2. See below in Figure 2.

Page image= Figure 2. A snapshot of Internet Explorer Verison 2.

With this launch, Bill Gates made it clear he wasn't planning on competiting in the web browser markert, he wanted to control it. With this launch, Netscape and Microsoft produced minor changes in their web browsers month after month to draw in consumers. This can be seen by the snapshot of both browsers in Figure 1. On October 7, 1997 Microsoft launched Internet Explorer Version 4. This was free and was already installed with Windows Operating System. This meant that consumers did not have to buy a web browser (like Navigator) and because it was free and already installed, consumers went to Microsoft. See below in Figure 3.

Page Image= Figure 3. A snapshot of Internet Explorer Verison 4.

By 2001, the Browser war finally ended because Internet Explorer officially took over the majority control of browsers and Netscape was bought by a different company, AOL (American Online) for 4 billion dollars.

7. Side bar image:

8. Side bar content: James Clark is an entrepeneur and computer scientist. He's many successful startups such as Silicon Graphics and Netscape Communications. He saw the potential in Mosaic (later changed to Netscape) and invested $4 million dollars into, when Netscape went public, he walked away with $600 million.

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