Back when I started with Critical Mass in 2000, the browser wars were still hotly contested but it was already clear that Netscape was losing. Standards were slowly (finally) creeping into the mix, and Netscape was on the wrong side of the fence.

Despite being the IPO that really kicked off the first internet gold rush, Netscape just didn’t have the business clout to keep it going. Netscape’s browser was free (so no revenue), and its web server was not having the same kind of hot sales everyone had hoped for (it was later sold to Sun, where it became iPlanet, and has mostly withered).

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