The one who ignited the fuse was the equally competitive field of market research. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 As if they had made an appointment together, they came up with their own statistics and analysis results at the end of the year.

For example, International Data Information Co., Ltd., headquartered in Massachusetts, on the east coast of the United States, pointed out in its own report that Netscape Browser Netscape_Navigator as a challenger, and its market share has soared to 20%; Polestar, which once held 90 percent of the market, has quickly slipped to 60 percent – a trend that is likely to continue next year.

The statement of international data information is tantamount to major good news for Challenger Netscape, and the staff up and down are excited about it.

However, another market research firm in the eastern United States, Connecticut-based Gartner, had a mixed picture.

Compared with the absolute monopoly in the case of one-man singing, Polestar's market share has indeed declined significantly, but it still attracts more than two-thirds of Internet users.

Netscape Browser Netscape_Navigator market share and is growing rapidly, attracting at least one-third of Internet users.

It's worth noting that, in addition to the two top browsers, third-party browsers are also gaining momentum. The proportion of Internet users attracted by it has reached one-fifth.

The reason why these three types of browsers attract more than one Internet user combined, is because in reality, many Internet users have more than one browser installed on their computers.

This result also reveals the chaos caused by the fierce competition in the browser field at this stage, that is, different browser products vary greatly in the degree of compliance with industry standards, and ultimately lead to web designers having to consider which browser can render correctly and display the interface they envision, and users have to install multiple browsers if they want to enjoy the World Wide Web.

Gartner argues that at a time when Netscape Netscape_Navigator so engrossed in challenging Polestar that these third-party browsers are so active that they can even threaten them at the same time. Perhaps, the Netscape_Navigator, which is still in a relatively weak position, will be more affected.

Netscape, which is passionate about its work, first unconvincingly questioned whether Gartner's market research results can stand up to scrutiny in terms of rigor - the so-called third-party browser should not be a public relations Internet_Explorer Microsoft browser that has just come to the fore for help, and it is not an exaggeration to say that it is late. Can it affect me badly?

Like International Data Information Co., Ltd., Gartner has also focused on the IT industry for many years, and of course it wants to maintain the authority of its own market research report, so it announced another incomplete list of information collection - don't you faintly accuse me of using third-party browsers to refer to Microsoft browser Internet_Explorer for advertising, then I'll let you see how big the third-party browser camp is now! Miscellaneous!

This unfinished list can shake onlookers, including the industry, - when did browsers become so cheap?

In addition to the Microsoft browser Internet_Explorer mentioned by Netscape, what else is the American Online Browser, Bertelsmann Browser, and CNN Browser......

That's a lot of stuff – no wonder Gartner hasn't done it all.

Tang Huan had several market research reports on his desk, and while browsing, he listened to the reports of Brad Swarberg, CEO of Zheru Software, and others.

When he saw Gartner's rather spectacular list of third-party browsers, Tang Huan, the initiator of the idea, couldn't help but laugh and joked casually: "Your efficiency is really high, so many companies have their own browsers." ”

Brad Swalberg replied matter-of-factly: "The main thing is that they see the value of the browser as a new promotional window like the World Wide Web site, especially if it's not very technically difficult - the easiest thing is to give our browser Polestar a skin with its logo, and we can launch it without any painstaking things, and naturally everyone is very motivated." ”

"That's also inseparable from your communication." Tang Huan affirmed with a smile.

I have to say that this kind of leadership charm is completely different from Jobs, Gates and others, in their own companies, they spew "it's just shit" and "this is the stupidest plan I've ever seen" at every turn, and spur their subordinates with extreme disparagement, which is a good way to whitewash the rigor of the entire company system that even Intel can't match.

Pushing away those market research reports, Tang Huan asked again: "Now, what is the reaction of all parties to this?" ”

"Netscape, which has been only interested in competing with us, probably hasn't really figured out what's going on until now." Brad Swarberg couldn't help but laugh: "People who have some clues are arguing about how many of these third-party browsers are strictly technologically independent~. ”

Tang Huan sighed: "Zheru Software Company's products are not only browsers, but also the mission is more important to lead the industry and guide the technical direction, it is really not worth wasting too much energy for a rookie like Netscape, so you can only choose to let the browser field enter the pattern of thousands of trees and pear blossoms, and drown the other party." ”

It is necessary to point out that freedom ~ freedom and freedom are the driving force of the Internet, which can not be just talked about, but should be deeply understood under the premise of survival and development of the law.

The personal computer industry can rely on a set of advanced platform standards to fight in the east and west, and fight in the north and south until it dominates the world, but if the Internet environment is still so domineering, users have long been attracted by free solutions, and there are always competitors who will break through the existing "lower limit" of the means of solicitation.

In the early 1990s, when Tang Huan contributed the research results of the World Wide Web, the way was far more relaxed and free than the implementation of Fangyuan computer standards~, and the purpose was to allow everyone to transfer from various early Internet application models to the unified platform of the World Wide Web.

The World Wide Web Consortium, which he asked Tim Berners-Lee to form and lead, has developed a series of standards to address the incompatibilities caused by different platforms, technologies and developers in Web applications, and to ensure the smooth and complete flow of Web information, and to urge Web application developers and content providers to follow these standards.

The content of these standards includes specifications for the use of the language, principles in the development process, interpretation of engine behavior, and so on.

Among them, Zheru has contributed a large number of technical standard research results, including HTML - hypertext markup language, CSS - cascading style sheets, Scripting_language - scripting language, XML - extensible markup language, etc., to regulate every move of the Internet.

However, there is one thing that these Web standards developed by the World Wide Web Consortium are not mandatory, but only recommended.

Therefore, Netscape is a stunned young man, adding exclusive HTML and CSS tags, introducing the Java language of Sun Microsystems, etc., to challenge the existing standards, and make the same Web page, on platforms other than its own browser Netscape_Navigator, often unable to render normally, so that developers have to launch different versions of Web pages for mainstream browsers to achieve the best display effect.

Then the problem comes, Netscape is a-stirring stick, which makes everyone at a loss and increases the amount of labor out of thin air, but why is it still popular?

This leads to another question, that is, what is the specific performance of the competition between different browsers at this stage? What attracts users so much that they can't do without it?

The answer is simple, it's function – the more, the better!

No matter how strong Zheru Software Company is, it is impossible for its products to have all the functions regardless of priority, regardless of size.

The strongest evidence of this trend is the rapid increase in the version number of browsers and the increasing size of the program.

It's even more important than the stability of the product itself - Netscape Browser Netscape_Navigator often crashes during use, which has become an impressive feature.

Not to mention, in the context of today's wild growth of the Internet, users are buying it.

This phenomenon is similar to the competition in the CPU field, as long as you find a way to increase the operating frequency, you can simply and crudely make up for the performance shortcomings caused by the architecture design.

This is the internal reason why in the Internet era, in the face of powerful philosophical software, Netscape still dares to challenge and live a good life.

This is also the real feature of the Internet - the current powerhouse like Zheru Software may fall into a thousand hatreds; A once frustrated person like IBM turned over; Netscape may succeed in rebellion......

All in all, there are all kinds of possibilities in the age of the Internet!

Tang IT, who saw all this clearly, faced the ups and downs one after another, as always, calm and relaxed, and commanded.

The World Wide Web Alliance was blushing and thick-necked, Tim Berners-Lee was so angry that he almost had a cerebral infarction, and rebels like Netscape still turned a deaf ear and went his own way, so Tang Huan simply turned the browser competition to another track - strictly speaking, it was the second round of the original space-time browser war.

Is the browser heavy or? Of course it's important! It is regarded as the basic platform comparable to the operating system, and whoever controls it, then the Internet belongs to the winner!

However, the competitive means of browsers do not necessarily require developers to do their best to deliver their products to all users.

Don't forget, the current browser is essentially free.

For companies that produce browser products such as Zheru and Netscape, the profit point is in the background, that is, the company uses web servers that correspond to front-end browsers such as Polestar and Netscape_Navigator and output World Wide Web content.

In this case, the essence of the browser competition is obvious, it is the programming interface - who occupies all the terminal computers in front, and the web server behind, it is not difficult to imagine how to choose.

On the other hand, take the browser field that originally entered the new century in time and space, what 360 browser, QQ browser, Sohu browser...... Despite all the boasting of its own technology, is it really the case? Is the browser kernel developed in-house?

Of course, the answer is not - no matter how dazzling the types of browsers on the market, the number of cores in them is only a handful, just like Android smartphones, no matter how proud to claim how deep the development is, it can't change the essence of Google.

So what is the impetus for so many browsers to pop up?

You can think of this answer for yourself, just look at what such browsers do when they are installed on your computer - directly set the Internet homepage of the operating system as your own homepage; The websites listed on the homepage are all collaborators...... Everyone is still fighting for the entrance to the Internet for users.

But in fact, this kind of entrance is not really that important for Zheru Software, which provides technical solutions.

One of the things that Polestar doesn't care about and don't want to follow in terms of its technical architecture is that at the programming interface level, the kernel is isolated for third parties to call - even to the point where it can easily be paired with an OEM version of a "new" browser with the skin technology already used in products such as players.

One of the first benefits of this is that StudiOS is easy to integrate with Polestar.

Therefore, the essence of browser competition is the background server represented by the programming interface, and the front-end browser as the entrance to the Internet, and the interests of all parties are hot, Tang IT has directed a drama in the browser field.

The third-party browsers derived from the Polestar kernel, although they have also affected Polestar's own share, but the powerful Zheru Software doesn't really care about this, at most the stock price fluctuations without knowing the truth are insignificant, and closely behind, independent technology competitors like Netscape are caught in the ocean of people's war.

Now that he has seen the actual effect, Tang Huan is satisfied and feels very funny.

But he remained calm and asked Brad Swahlberg what exactly he was doing in the process of actually suppressing Netscape.