Netscape

Netscape Communications Corporation was a pivotal company in the popularization of the World Wide Web, founded initially as Mosaic Communications Corporation on April 4, 1994. The company was the brainchild of Dr. James H. Clark, founder of Silicon Graphics, and Marc Andreessen, who had led the development of NCSA Mosaic, the first widely-used graphical web browser, while at the University of Illinois. Clark, seeking his next venture after leaving Silicon Graphics, connected with the 22-year-old Andreessen to commercialize the web-browsing experience. They recruited a core team of developers from the original NCSA Mosaic project to build a superior browser from the ground up.

The company's primary product was the Netscape Navigator, a web browser that quickly dominated the market upon its initial release in late 1994. At its peak in the mid-1990s, Netscape held over 80% of the browser market share. Its business model initially involved selling licenses for its browser to businesses, while allowing free use for academic and non-commercial purposes. The company also generated significant revenue from its server-side software, including the Netscape Commerce Server and Communications Server, targeting enterprises building a web presence. Netscape's contributions to web technology were substantial, including the development of JavaScript, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for secure online communications, and HTTP cookies.

Netscape's trajectory was marked by a sensational Initial Public Offering (IPO) on August 9, 1995, a mere 16 months after its founding. The stock, initially priced at $28 per share, soared to over $70 on its first day of trading, giving the young, unprofitable company a market valuation of nearly $3 billion and signaling the start of the dot-com boom. However, the company soon entered the "first browser war" with Microsoft, which began bundling its Internet Explorer browser for free with its dominant Windows operating system. This move severely eroded Netscape's revenue stream from browser sales and market share. In response, Netscape open-sourced its browser code in 1998, which led to the creation of the Mozilla Organization and, eventually, the Firefox browser. On November 24, 1998, America Online (AOL) announced its acquisition of Netscape in a stock deal ultimately valued at around $10 billion. Despite the acquisition, Netscape's browser usage continued to decline, falling to less than one percent by 2006. AOL eventually ceased development and support for the Netscape browser on March 1, 2008.

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