THE battle between Silicon Valley darling Netscape and Microsoft, whom some would consider the Evil Empire incarnate, is taking shape.
At stake is not just the most visible prize - who has the most desktop PC users for its "Web browser" - but the future of personal computing itself.
The company controlling that future has enormous power over customers, licensees and the entire computer industry. Until a year or so ago, Microsoft thought it had beaten off all possible contenders. And then along came the Internet. Of course the Internet has been around in the scientific and defence communities for some time, but Netscape's Navigator made it accessible, exciting and useful for real people.
At first, Microsoft ignored the potential of the Web, choosing to concentrate all of its considerable marketing clout on owning the desktop through its Windows operating system and applications like MS Office, Word and Excel.
Suddenly, at the end of December last year, Bill Gates decreed an all out attack on the Web. Even Microsoft's many critics agree that the change in direction has been dramatic, profound and successful. The company has focused its razor sharp marketing engine on beating Netscape, and with the launch of both companies' Version 3 of their browsers last week most analysts would agree they have achieved parity.
Netscape would argue that its Navigator 3.0 is faster, smaller and runs on 16 platforms. Rut Microsoft has never prospered by being technologically ahead of the competition - it succeeds by dint of Its take no prisoners, business is war approach. Occasionally Microsoft is caught out.
Netscape has asked the US Justice Department to reopen its investigation into anti trust practices by Microsoft. Netscape hopes to convince investigators that some of Microsoft's distribution and bundling arrangements have broken the law. The companies have waged a press war by faxing competing 8 page claims and rebuttals to news desks across America.
Netscape has made a series of charges that Microsoft is "encouraging" third parties such as Windows licensees and Internet Service Providers to favour Microsoft's Internet Explorer 3.0 over Netscape's Navigator. Netscape has alleged, for example, that Microsoft has offered to pay international telecom customers $5 for each copy of their browser that replaces Netscape's Navigator.
Netscape also claims that Microsoft offers reduced Windows 95 licensing fees to PC makers that drop Navigator. Speaking to PC Week magazine this week, Mr Brad Chase, vice president of Microsoft's Internet Platform and Tools Division, described the allegations as "more of a PR stunt than a legal document".
The real game, however, is just beginning. Microsoft needs to move the battle away from competing browsers, where it is weak (Netscape dominates, with 80 per cent share of the browser market) to the desktop operating system where of course it is virtually unchallenged, except by Apple's 10 per cent market share.
Quoted in the New York Times, industry analyst John Rymer of Giga Information Group said: "Microsoft is making the browser a fundamental part of the operating system. Netscape needs to establish the browser as a separate market."
Microsoft intends to offer one stop shopping, with Internet access integrated into the Windows operating system. Netscape offers an open, cross platform, industry standard and industrial strength solution. In fact this week Netscape announced it would spin off a new company, Navio, which would develop Internet access software for non computer devices such as TVs, game systems and telephones, thus bypassing the desktop hegemony of Microsoft altogether.
Both companies make compelling arguments, and both will be reiterating them again and again in the escalating war over who will win control of the coming generation of web browsers.
