THE Internet browser war between Netscape and Microsoft is likely to become more frenzied than ever in the months ahead, with both companies trying to woo Net surfers with new products. Already, many Internet sites are filled with adverts for one or the other, promising more power than ever for trawling the World Wide Web.
Browsers - the software programmes that let computer users flick from one site to the next on the Internet - are becoming more and more integrated with everyday desktop programmes. The competition is strategically crucial because the company winning the most users, stands to gain a huge outpouring of additional software sales. This includes everything from managing email to handling word processors to news-delivery systems.
"It's an interesting time," says Mr Colm Grealy, managing director of Ireland On Line, the country's biggest Internet service provider. "It is extremely important for both companies to keep their market share, or increase it, because the addons may in time become the operating systems."
For some users, browsers will soon be the centrepiece of their computing activities, he adds, and they will view most applications through their Internet programme.
Microsoft, which entered the browser market late but has in the past two years mounted a major challenge to the once dominant Netscape, is already promoting its Internet Explorer 4.0 on the Web - even though the software is not. scheduled for release for several
The Microsoft advertisements are timed to coincide with the release of Netscape's Communicator 4.0 product, which is now hitting the market and costs around 580 (Pounds 50). Microsoft executives claim they want to remind customers that their own next-generation browser software packed full of features will be along soon - and for free - before they choose to go with Netscape.
Netscape managers insist the publicity is another example of how Microsoft, the biggest software company in the world, tries to freeze customers from buying other brands by persuading them to wait for Microsoft's offerings.
The practice, sometimes referred to as announcing vaporware" which does not exist or spreading FUD - "fear, uncertainty and doubt" about a rival's product offering - is well known in the computer business.
Mr Rob Enderle, a senior analyst at Giga Information Group estimates Microsoft is spending up to 510 million on its current Internet Explorer 4.0 media blitz a drop in the bucket for the software giant.
The marketing director in Microsoft's Internet client group Mr Yusef Mehdi, says the cornpany plans to issue a broad "beta" test release of its next browser this month, with final release due by the end of summer.
"We want customers, whether you're a corporate customer or an end-user customer, to understand there's going to be a choice," he adds. "Maybe we'll have a great product out there that'll be free.
Netscape has set high targets for Communicator, aiming to sell 10 million copies within the first 30 days and 30 million by the time Microsoft's product ships in its own broad-based marketing push.
The battle remains rugged for a browser market which Zona Research estimates at less than l per cent of the nearly 535 billion spent on Internet-based products in 1996, and which is due to underperform other Internet opportunities.
