Netscape's next generation New Web browser and related software may spell success for Java

October  1995

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In addition to preparing a major upgrade to its Navigator Web browser, Netscape Communications Corp., the Mountain View, CA company that dominates the Web browser market, is working to complete two products intended to simplify and enhance the development Web pages and the tools used to manage them.

The first public demo of Java applets running on an alpha of Navigator 2.0 that occurred during Unix Expo in New York in September generated considerable enthusiasm from a turn-away crowd at Sun's Java Day session. The fact that Sun's Java programmers worked long hours to help prepare this demo hints at the prominence Java will enjoy in the forthcoming Netscape application suite.

The ingredients
Netscape's latest crop of products includes:

• Navigator 2.0, a significant upgrade to the preeminent Web browser that boasts improved e-mail, newsgroup, FTP, and navigation capabilities as well as Java support, sophisticated layout enhancements (which allow multiple independent window panels on a single screen) and inline multimedia viewers for such things as Macromedia Director presentations and Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF) files.

  Via an inline HTML tag, files such as movies and PDF documents play and display embedded within the HTML documents rather than in separate windows. The new browser also promises enhanced performance through client-side image maps, progressive JPEG images, and streaming audio and video via inline viewers. Security features include digital ID, secure courier for financial transactions, and secure e-mail and news.

  Click this image for a 40K expanded version of the screen shot.

  Along with enhanced e-mail, newsgroup features, and support for Java applets, Navigator 2.0 features advanced layout capabilities including "frames," which enable the display of multiple, independently scrollable panels on a single screen. Each can have a different Web address (URL) as its source.

• Navigator Gold, a tool that lets users navigate, edit, and create live HTML documents via a WYSIWYG editor integrated into the Navigator environment, thereby eliminating the need to jump back and forth between the browser and an editor. Navigator Gold includes Navigator 2.0, and Netscape officials expect it to cost $79.

• LiveWire, an environment designed to let developers easily build and manage applications and multimedia content for the Internet and enterprise networks. The graphical tool is designed to simplify the management of complex Web document hyperlinks. With an expected price of less than $500, LiveWire includes Navigator Gold, site and link management features, and JavaScript, a scripting language based on Java. For about $1,000, LiveWire Pro adds database connectivity designed to let Navigator users browse, search, and update relational databases.

  The JavaScript language is a "lightweight" version of Java, offering a "Visual Basic level of complexity," according to Atri Chatterjee, Netscape's director of server product marketing.

  Netscape says the scripts can be inserted almost anywhere in HTML documents, and points out that Navigator has an embedded script interpreter.

The public demo of Java applets running
on an alpha version of Navigator 2.0
occurred during Unix Expo in New York.

Recipe for success
As impressive as the new version of the Navigator browser promises to be Navigator Gold and LiveWire may have the biggest impact on Netscape's future. Moreover, LiveWire, with its scripting language, could catapult Sun's Java from an exciting concept to popular success. While Netscape's Java browser will almost certainly accelerate Java's acceptance, LiveWire promises to lower the level of programming skill needed to develop Java applets, as well as make the task easier for expert programmers. A Java browser isn't of much value without compelling applets, which to date are in short supply.

Sun has seen its technical innovations flop in the past, despite facing inferior alternatives. (Consider NeWS, Sun's proprietary windowing environment that lost a standards battle with the X Window System.) With Java, the company hopes to avoid another blunder. By tying Java into the leading Web browser company's first development environment, Sun and Netscape may indeed give Sun's latest technology the critical mass it needs to prosper as a commercial product.

Netscape bills LiveWire as an environment that "expands Netscape's client/server software line... into a full operating system for the Internet." Of course, customers ultimately will decide whether Netscape's latest batch will satisfy their cravings. And questions remain regarding the ability to effectively implement a Java interpreter across all major platforms. But the first step -- a taste test -- is already underway.

As this story was written in late September, Netscape was preparing to offer public beta versions for Macintosh, Windows, and the X Window System at its Web site; the company expects formal release versions of its newly announced products to ship in December.

--Michael O'Connell

Editor's note: IDG, the Boston-based parent company of SunWorld Online, owns a minority interest in Netscape Communications Corp.

Resources

• Java home page
  http://java.sun.com/
• Netscape home page
  http://home.netscape.com/
• Netscape Navigator "random-seed" security breach
  http://home.netscape.com/newsref/std/random_seed_security.html
• Navigator 2.0 overview
  http://home.netscape.com/comprod/products/navigator/version_2.0/index.html
• Navigator 2.0 suite
  http://home.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease44.html
• Navigator LiveWire information
  http://home.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease41.html
• Java-enabled Netscape Navigator press release
  http://www.netscape.com/newsref/pr/newsrelease25.html

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URL: http://www.sunworld.com/swol-10-1995/swol-10-netscape.html
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