Netscape officials denied a report in the computer trade press today that the company has suspended work on Javagator, the nickname for Netscape's all-Java version of its Navigator browser. But their comments shed little light on the future of the special browser project.
"Nothing has changed," said Netscape spokeswoman Andrea Cook, referring to the company's position on the project, officially codenamed Maui.
Jim Hamerly, vice president of the client product division, said that all work on Maui forges ahead, including the work done in conjunction with other companies since the project's inception.
"We've worked with partners all along the way, so in essence there's not a whole lot of news here," Hamerly said. He wouldn't name the partner companies specifically, although IBM and Sun are the primary partners in Netscape's other Java-related projects.
Sources close to Netscape say that during formation of the company's plans to release its source code, there was a professed desire to suspend Javagator's development, but partner companies dissuaded the company from doing so.
IBM representatives confirm that it and other companies with interest in the success of network computers (NC) are reviewing Netscape's call for help in the funding and development of Javagator.
A cross-company effort by companies with NC interests is the only course that makes sense for Javagator's future, according to Forrester Research's Ted Schadler. "If there are strong partners involved, then you can have a joint venture that says Netscape is responsible for Communicator - and this new subsidiary is going to build Javagator."
But the prospect of a subsidiary was not something Hamerly would confirm. "I don't think we want to discuss that at this point," he said, "because the discussion of the Java browser initiative is ongoing with our partners, and until that is settled we can't make comments about where the project is going afterward."
There has long been speculation that the Maui project was being de-emphasized at Netscape, partly due to the cool reception of NCs in the market.
"We've anticipated it for the simple reason that there's no money in browsers and that Netscape has released a free source version of Communicator," said Forrester's Schadler. "The only place you can run a Javagator today is on an NC - and there ain't none."
The continued development of the pure-Java browser - mainly expected for use on constrained, thin-client devices like network computers - also makes increasingly less sense in light of recent developments at the Mountain View company.
With the announcement that it would begin free distribution of its browser software and source code, the company also said it would stop developing the Java Virtual Machine for its browser. But there are financial justifications to cut non-critical projects like Javagator, too, after the company suffered a a US$88 million, fourth-quarter loss in 1997.
Schadler said Netscape has to turn over Javagator development, at least as a separate subsidiary, for the added reason that continuing the project in-house undermines the plan to free its source code, starting with Communicator 5.0.
"The nightmare to the [Communicator 5.0] development community is the prospect of Netscape developing another code base," Schadler said. The company has to show commitment solely to the Communicator code that developers would be contributing too, he said.
