On a good-news roll, Netscape today reported quarterly revenues of US$150 million - up 11 percent from last quarter and 50 percent from the year-ago quarter - and devoted a good share of the corresponding news conference to smug talk about the Justice Department's full-on pursuit of Microsoft for allegedly violating antitrust laws.
The browser-maker turned a profit of $11.7 million for the quarter, a 53 percent increase over last year, and had an endless supply of happy-customer anecdotes to share with journalists gathered by phone. But first, Netscape CFO Peter Currie got to the real reason everyone was calling: Microsoft.
"We're supportive of the US Department of Justice action," he said of Monday's demand that the US Court of Appeals in Washington find Microsoft in contempt of a 1995 court order for allegedly coercing PC-makers to bundle the Internet Explorer browser into their machines. "All we want is a level playing field on which to operate - we've proven we're an aggressive player," he added, saying Netscape didn't believe Microsoft should be able to further its business under "predatory" conditions.
Netscape CEO James Barksdale, too, weighed in with his soothing drawl. "Your magazine could be considered part of the operating system," he teased a reporter from Business Week, referring to Microsoft's all-inclusive definition of the OS. Barksdale and other Netscape executives joked that it could include not only the browser, but the Active Channels of its media partners.
CFO Currie paraded out a few nice customer examples - including the Defense Department - and said that product licenses for both clients and servers brought in 72 percent of the quarter's $150 million revenues. While the company is apparently selling more client-server package deals into the enterprise market, and intentionally blurring the breakout of the two revenue streams, Currie was quick to note that the company's Web site, with its new NetCenter initiative, brought in $27 million in revenue this quarter - about two-thirds of the 28 percent of revenues that fall under the services category.
But the executive team gathered for the call really had other things on its mind. "All we've been advocating all along is that customers have free choice," blurted Mike Homer, Netscape's executive vice president of sales and marketing, responding again to the Microsoft situation.
