Thomas Bruce has watched them come and go. And Bruce, who wrote Cello, the world's first graphical Web browsers for Windows, says the game is over - there are no real alternatives to Web browsers from Microsoft Corp. and Netscape Communications Corp.
But don't tell that to Opera Software A/S. The Norwegian company that developed the Opera browser in 1994 has a loyal following that founder Jon von Tezchner says will only get larger as the Internet balloons from the estimated 100 million users today to more than 500 million with the next few years.
How can this tiny company and others like it compete with marketing behemoths such as the dueling Microsoft and Netscape? By going in the opposite direction, von Tezchner said.
According to some pundits, the smaller companies' only hope against the behemoths is to keep their offerings lean even as the established browsers get larger and larger. But even a small pieces of the pie could amount to some serious change - Zona Research, Inc. is predicting $351.6 million in browser sales next year.
Dave Garaffa, editor of Browser Watch, a Web site devoted to browser news, said trying to go head-on with the big browsers is futile. "Microsoft is giving away Internet Explorer. That's an amazing thing. (If you compete) it's like trying to sell air," he said.
Instead, Garaffa said the smaller browser companies should focus on their strong point: "They have something the larger ones will never have again: a lightweight, fast browser."
That is where Opera and the smaller browsers come in.
Opera is so slim it can run on a 386 - yet has such features as the ability to open multiple windows in a single frame and to zoom in on entire pages. It also supports frames and JavaScript.
"If we tried to copy the other browsers, we wouldn't stand a chance," von Tezchner said about the rush to add sizable plug-ins into browsers. "There are a lot of features (in the bigger browsers) that people don't want or use."
Bruce, who developed the Cello browser in the early '90s to spark development of browsers for Windows, said he sees the market moving away from the big suites like Communicator. Instead, he said that like the word processor market, which went to packages and then became individualized again, browsers will go back to being sold separate from their components.
If users go for this bare-bones approach, that opens the door to lean browsers such as Opera. Von Tezchner says this will let companies with large inventories of older machines give employees Web access without having to pay for expensive hardware upgrades.
Browser Watch's Garaffa agreed. "If people aren't upgrading their machines for a new operating system, they aren't going to upgrade for a new browser," he said.
For instance, Lynx, a browser developed at the University of Kansas and maintained by the Internet community, supports the Unix market with a text-only freeware application available via the Web; Apple Computer, Inc. offers its Cyberdog technology for Macintosh users free online; Prague-based xChaos Software, Inc.'s Arachne is a free Web browser for MS-DOS users.
Although these companies have been able to stay in the market, many companies have fallen by the wayside, including IBM, Oracle Corp., Spyglass, Inc. and Tradewave Corp. All had browser technology either on the market or in the works, but abandoned commercial browser efforts.
Garaffa attributed this to the single-user sales problem, where browsers have to attract customers one at a time. To get around this problem, companies such as Spyglass are going for bulk sales by embedding their browser technology into products from other companies such as phones and photocopiers.
"The alternative Web browser scene has migrated to develop Java applets," Cello's Bruce said.
Some companies that have lost in the browser battle resemble old-timers sitting outside a country store in an abandoned town talking about the way it was.
Eric Li, director of sales and marketing at Enreach Technology, Inc., formerly Talent Communications, Inc., painted a grim and bitter view of the browser marketplace. His company's browser entry, I-Comm, has been beaten out of the market and the company is suspending further development. Like Spyglass, Enreach now is focusing on embedded technology.
"The market is getting smaller and smaller," said Li, who added that it is impossible to compete with marketing powerhouses Netscape and Microsoft. Instead, companies have to find a vertical market such as online help or customized Web access as an application for their browser technologies.
What does all this mean for the future of the Web browser market? Garaffa said that the showdown between Netscape and Microsoft could possibly leave only one browser standing. If this happens, Garaffa said Web technology development will come to a screeching halt.
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