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Michael A. Cusumano
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David B. Yoffie
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Competing On Internet Time: Lessons From Netscape And Its Battle With Microsoft Paperback – Bargain Price, January 12, 2000

by Michael A. Cusumano (Author), David B. Yoffie (Author)
3.6 3.6 out of 5 stars 20 ratings
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No other business rivalry has captured the public imagination quite like the one between Netscape and Microsoft. And for good reason. It pits the world's richest corporation against a relatively recent startup. The implications of this battle--for everything from electronic commerce to network communications--extend well into the next millennium. Competing on Internet Time, by Michael A. Cusumano and David B. Yoffie, is the definitive blow-by-blow analysis of Netscape's battle with Microsoft, starting with the founding of Netscape in 1994 through the summer of 1998, just as Microsoft was about to enter the courtroom with the Justice department over its alleged monopolistic practices. Based on a series of interviews with Netscape employees and others, Competing on Internet Time is more than a breathless corporate biography. Rather, the authors draw lessons from the mistakes and victories that both Netscape and Microsoft have suffered and enjoyed in their war for 'Net turf--in terms of browsers, server software, and portal space. The authors come up with some surprising conclusions. For example, in examining the competitive strategies of both companies, Cusumano and Yoffie conclude that Microsoft, more than Netscape, exhibited what they call a "judo flexibility." Here they point to Microsoft's now famous December 7, 1995 Internet Day announcement of the company's embrace-and-extend strategy and its subsequent sacrifice of MSN in a deal with AOL--prime examples of how Microsoft redefined the battle in a way that avoided a direct confrontation with Netscape but nevertheless placed them center stage in the fight for Internet mindshare. The authors also go into fascinating detail about how each company operates--from the hiring of staffers to the conception, development, and marketing of products.

But this book is more than just about the conflict between Netscape and Microsoft. Anyone interested in how network-based businesses grow and change will find Competing on Internet Time a glimpse into the not-too-distant network economy. It belongs on the bookshelf of every Internet junkie and entrepreneur. --Harry C. Edwards
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  1. Print length
    384 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    January 12, 2000
  4. See all details
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  • Donovan Reese
    5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
    Reviewed in the United States on March 29, 2016
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    Fine
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  • Bas Vodde
    3.0 out of 5 stars Good at times, but lacking the technical perspective
    Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2011
    Verified Purchase
    "Competing on Internet Time" is about Netscape, the company that brought the world the Netscape browser, became huge and had one of the largest IPOs. Was eventually told and then disappeared. Although, the book only covers the first 2 of these, the bringing the Netscape browser and the becoming huge.

    The authors studies Netscape over a significant amount of time and had dozens of interviews on which they base this book The book contains 6 chapter and (my version) contained an important afterword that described what happened after the first version of the book was published. The first chapter is an introduction to the book whereas the last chapter is more or less a "what can we learn from the story" chapter that summarized the earlier made points and tries to give concrete advise based on that.

    The second chapter describes how Netscape got started and was how it quickly grew into a rather large company for one that lasted so short :) From the beginning it hired experienced people (especially from a start-up perspective) and it tried to build the organization and infrastructure based on the assumptions that it would be large. This is something I personally question whether this is a good idea as it seems to be the authors assumption that this is a good idea. In fact, throughout the book there are many assumptions about X is good "when in business" which at times felt annoying.

    Chapter 3-5 discusses strategy from 3 different perspectives. 3) The competitive strategy, 4) the design strategy and 5) the development strategy. The competitive strategy described the decisions Netscape took on which markets to operate, how to price their products, etc. It kind-of gives the super-senior-management impression where the management of the company had the perfect view and "on purpose" made these decisions, as if you truly have that amount of control over a company. Also, the Judo/Sumo analogies to martial arts, started to annoy me at this time... that is... the authors explained that Netscape used "judo" strategy where they used "the strength of the opponent" to their own advantage, whereas Microsoft could use "Sumo" strategy because they are big. These analogies felt unrealistic to me (very business-school like, which isn't a surprise considering the authors are business school professors)

    Chapter 4 and 5 talked a bit more about the technical decisions made (e.g. the support of Java) and how they were right or wrong and about how the company actually developed the product. The chapters are interesting, yet they reflect very strongly that the authors actually don't have much technical skill and seem to be unaware of what happened on a code level within Netscape or how the company was managed on a low-level. In fact, these chapters feel somewhat contradicting to posts on the internet from ex-Netscape developers who "left the sinking ship". Still, most of the information was summarized from the interviews which made it still an interesting read.

    That brings me to the conclusion. In retrospect, a book about how the company and strategy of Netscape works is amusing as the company was bought and most of its technology (meaning the software) has ceased to be used... all, the client, the servers and the web-site. Of course, Netscape did give us technologies that are still in active use, some positive like Javascript and some which I'd rather wish they would have never gone that road, like LDAP. Most of the book describes Netscape as this great and successful company which, on the long-term, turned out to be untrue. That said, Netscape is an interesting company to learn from and the book gives probably one of the best pictures of how Netscape worked. From that perspective, it was definitively an interesting read. Unfortunately, there are so much "business school" assumptions that makes reading the story of Netscape every now and then... difficult. Also, the lack of technical knowledge of the authors was (for me) fairly obvious and made the quality of certain chapters a lot worst. In conclusion, not a bad book, yet not a book I'd quickly recommend unless you want to know exactly what happened to Netscape (and even then, I suggest to supplement the book with other sources such as posts and reports on internet. Therefore, 3 out of 5 stars.
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  • Arnold Kling
    2.0 out of 5 stars chalkboard analysis
    Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2000
    This is a well-written, interesting book. However, in my opinion, it tells only part of the story. It looks at how Netscape formulated its strategy, but not at how (or whether) this strategy was executed.
    This is like explaining a football game entirely on the basis of the diagrams that the coaches drew on the chalkboard. What actually happened on the field gets no attention.
    For example, the authors claim that one of Netscape's strategies was to leverage Internet standards. However, the reality is that with its browser Netscape thumbed its nose at Internet standards, particularly when it dominated the market. Even today, its browser generally is seen as less compliant with standards than is Microsoft Explorer.
    Another alleged Netscape strategy was to "eat your own dogfood," which means using your own products. The reality is quite different. For example, Netscape released a production version of Enterprise 3.0 and kept its own web site on Enterprise 2.0 for several months afterward.
    In 1996, a key component of Netscape's web server was something they called LiveWire, which provided scripting and database connectivity. I adopted it for my web site in the second half of 1996. However, after several months of trying to get it to work reliably, we had to abandon it, moving to Java servlets instead.
    Meanwhile, as of late 1997 (when I stopped following it), Netscape's web site still had not adoped LiveWire. They let other users suffer with the bugs and problems in LiveWire, while they ran their own site using the older technology of CGI/Perl. That means they spent at least 1-1/2 years in real time (multiply by 7x to get Internet time) NOT eating their own dogfood. In contrast, Microsoft used their competing Active Server Page technology immediately on their sites.
    To return to the football analogy, my epitaph for Netscape is that it is a company that told the press and its shareholders that it was aiming to play in the Super Bowl, but disdained to practice blocking and tackling.
    While Netscape's executives were formulating these nifty strategies, Sun and Microsoft were getting their code in shape. In my opinion, that is most of the story.
    23 people found this helpful
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  • Timothy Rogers
    4.0 out of 5 stars Great Business Read Without Putting you to Sleep
    Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 1999
    Verified Purchase
    This is one of the best business books I have ever come across. The authors do a great job presenting the redical shift in business strategy made necessary by the speed of the information economy. The book is well researched and strikes a nice balance between being practical vs. academic. My only complaints are that the authors tend to repeat themselves and that the cover is misleading in that the book is basically a case study of Netscape's business strategy, and provides very few revelations regarding it's duals with Microsoft.
    4 people found this helpful
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