Andreessen: Netscape's Javagator Is Dead

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July 01, 1998 (12:00 AM EDT)

By Wylie Wong,

BURLINGAME, Calif. -- Netscape's vice president Marc Andreessen said Tuesday Netscape's development of a Java-based browser -- called Javagator -- is now officially dead.

Independent Java programmers have embraced Netscape's Communicator 5.0 source-code giveaway and said they plan to build their own Java Web browser, Andreessen told Computer Reseller News, but the company is no longer interested in participating in development efforts.

"Javagator is dead," he said in an interview after a speech at the Enterprise Outlook conference here in Burlingame, Calif.

Then he turned facetious on the merits of a Java browser. "My joke is that a Java Navigator will have a lot of good attributes: It's slower. It will crash more and have fewer features. So you can do fewer things. It will simplify your life," he said, laughing.

Netscape (company profile), which is now focusing its business on its Netcenter portal site and selling e-commerce software and Web-infrastructure servers, previously said it was committed to building Javagator. Earlier this year, the Mountain View, Calif., developer placed plans to create the pure Java browser on hold until it received funding help from its Java partners: Sun Microsystems, IBM, and others.

Andreessen did not rule out the option that Netscape could make the Javagator code available to the public, much like the company's recent public release of its Navigator browser source code.

A group of independent Java developers are working to create Jazilla, a pure Java version of the Navigator source code originally written in C and C++.

Andreessen said Java on the client is just not working, though there's the potential for it to happen.

"I've always believed Netscape's original mistake was someone actually has to do the work. It's technically possible, but no one is doing the work," he said. "The work is to make the Java runtime stable and fast. There's an opportunity to do that. Right now, Microsoft is doing it. And there you are."

Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft, which is being sued by Sun, has been accused of tweaking Java and fragmenting the language.

During his speech, Andreessen said server-side Java is blooming, but people must be aware that fragmentation could occur as Palo Alto, Calif.-based Sun and other companies try to make money off the technology.