Synopsis
From the cofounder of Netscape and the inspiration for Michael Lewis's bestselling The New, New Thing, comes a thrilling insider's account of the race to beat Microsoft for control of the Internet.
Netscape was a tiny start-up company that ultimately revolutionized business and communications for the entire world. Jim Clark tells the fascinating story of how he, Marc Andreessen, and a core group of programmers turned an esoteric computer program into a visionary new technology used by millions. Challenged from the start by competition, a seemingly bottomless pit of expenses, and a need for secrecy from the roving eye of Microsoft, Clark's programmers spent days at a stretch in front of their computer screens, rushing to produce their revolutionary Web browser under the enormous pressure of time. Clark vividly re-creates the tense, thrilling atmosphere of the start-up company in a nail-biting tale of drama and suspense. Netscape Time is also an inspiring manual for anyone who wishes to take advantage of the endless business possibilities of today's technology. Indeed, Clark, the only person ever to found three multibillion-dollar start-ups, is perhaps more qualified than any businessman today to show how it's done.
As a business book, as a reflection of our technology culture, and as a purely enjoyable read, Netscape Time is perhaps the most significant book about the rise of the Internet ever to be published.
Reviews
In this sharply written account, Clark provides the ultimate insider's look at Netscape from its launch in summer 1994 to its sale to America Online in late 1998. Netscape's origins can be traced to when Clark was forced out of the first company he founded, Silicon Graphics. Bolstered by a "minor fortune" of $15 million, Clark was determined to do financially better for himself in his next venture. At the suggestion of a colleague, Clark met with Marc Andreessen, a recent graduate of the University of Illinois who had led the team that developed the Mosaic Web browser. The two hit it off, and after some false starts, they decided to form a company dedicated to building a "Mosaic killer." With the decision made, events moved at a rapid pace (what he calls "Netscape Time"). As Clark tells Netscape's story, he sheds light on the different mindsets of managers, programmers and venture capitalists. Of his programmers he writes: "these were my rock 'n' roll stars. I wasn't about to make them unhappy by telling them to grow up." His tale of keeping them all togetherAand of recruiting Jim Barksdale to be CEOAas Netscape headed for its famously successful IPO is one of the most engrossing parts of the book. There's even a villain: Microsoft. Clark charges that monopolistic practices (i.e., bundling its Web browser with Windows) allowed Microsoft to weaken Netscape to the point where it was forced to merge with AOL. Clark's hatred of Microsoft is evident throughout the book, but that doesn't mar a heady tale of one of Silicon Valley's greatest success stories. Author tour. (June)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The founder of a major Internet-based enterprise offers a chronology and insider's narrative of Netscape, from its inception through a wildly successful public stock offering. The era of Internet commerce is well under way, and Netscape is one of the really big winners so far. Jim Clark had already participated in the start-up of Silicon Graphics, a successful computer company, when he used his winnings to assemble a team to develop a product that could take advantage of the wide-open future anticipated for the World Wide Web. Traditional business start-ups, even in the 1990s, can take years to reach a stage where they are attractive to investors; Netscape, like many other Web companies, reduced this process to a matter of months. Along the way, quick decisions, compromises, and mess were part of the environment. At one point, the offices of the new company ``looked like a conceptual art exhibition at a state mental institution.'' Programmers were one of the essentials for the new company; other key personnel were also recruitedincluding managers, intellectual-property attorneys, and public relations talentand until money started coming in, there was a perpetual quest for cash to pay the bills. Along the way, Microsoft, Netscape's version of a playground bully, challenged their efforts. Marc Andreessen, the young programmer who actually created Netscape's initial software concept, is credited but remains a stranger in this tale. Clark, the ultimate insider here, is responsible for providing the details; Edwards, an editor at Forbes, has helped in the writing, perhaps aided by his previous book effort, Upward Nobility (1992), which covered the culture of business success. Despite the record-setting success of the IPO for Netscape, little evidence presented here requires a book for the telling; a magazine article would have sufficed. And too little justification is provided for bragging that ``since our fateful beta release . . . I believe the world is a better place.'' (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
This book captures the drama of Netscape Communications' phenomenal success. The heroes are author Clark, one of the cofounders of Netscape, and a small band of programmers who set out to write a better Internet browser than Mosaic, on which many of them had worked for minimal pay and little official credit. The villains are the owners of Mosaic and Microsoft, who had a vested interest in maintaining the status quo (despite arguably inferior software) and who put roadblocks in Netscape's path. Within 15 months of Netscape's founding, its initial public offering of stock valued the company at $2.2 billion. But the Netscape success story closes on a sour note: at the time of writing, a Justice Department investigation against Microsoft that was prompted by Netscape had not reached its conclusion, and Netscape had agreed to merge with America Online because it feared being pushed out of business by Microsoft. Throughout, Clark stresses the competitiveness of most of the computer industry (with the notable exception of Microsoft) and the need to improve products constantly and rapidlyAin his words, in "Netscape time."AA.J. Sobczak, Covina, CA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Leave the arguing over who "invented" the Internet to the politicians! Certainly no one will dispute the role of the folks at Netscape in turning the Internet into the pervasive medium it has become. Journalists Joshua Quittner and Michelle Slatalla have already chronicled Netscape's rise in Speeding the Net (1998), and in Competing on Internet Time (1998), Professors Michael Cusumano and David Yoffle documented the battle of the browsers that was waged between Netscape and Microsoft. Now, though, we get the story firsthand. While Marc Andressen is the brains behind Netscape and CEO Jim Barksdale provides the motivational leadership, the company was Jim Clark's idea, and he supplied the entrepreneurial drive that turned a bunch of hackers and programmers into millionaires. Both Clark's book and Speeding the Net begin with an account of the spectacular success of Netscape's initial public stock offering. Clark then flashes back to his departure from Silicon Graphics, the $2.2 billion company he also happened to found. He explains how he met Andressen and how they started a new company by giving away for free its only product. Clark acknowledges his personal dislike and distrust of Bill Gates and, in an epilogue, he downplays Netscape's seeming surrender to Microsoft, which was signaled by Netscape's agreement to be acquired by America Online. The real story here is in the details of Netscape's beginnings and its bitter intellectual property dispute with the University of Illinois over Mosaic, the prototype for the Web browser. David Rouse
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