Press Release

Netscape Gecko Browsing Engine and Mozilla.org Winning Industry Recognition with Growing Developer Support

Mozilla Open Source Development Initiative Receives CNET Builder.com 'Web Innovator of the Year' Award

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (May 19, 1999) - Netscape, a subsidiary of America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL), today announced growing momentum for Gecko, its next-generation small, fast, and standards-based browsing engine. More than 10,000 open source developers have downloaded the software from mozilla.org and leading companies including Bradbury Software, CiTEC, Cyberworld, NeoPlanet, Sausage Software and Telescan Imagicast are working to integrate it into their products. Netscape Gecko is the first software product from Netscape based on contributions from mozilla.org, the organization chartered with managing Netscape's open source initiative. Earlier this month, CNET Builder.com awarded the second annual "Web Innovator of the Year" award to mozilla.org. (http://www.builder.com/Business/Innovators98/ss01.html).

"The mozilla.org staff are delighted that the Mozilla Organization has received the Web Innovator of the Year award. This award belongs to all our open source developers and participants who have contributed so much since the beginning," said Brendan Eich, principal engineer of mozilla.org and recipient of last year's Web Innovator of the Year award. "Through their efforts, mozilla.org is poised to deliver the leading browser in the industry."

"We are witnessing a new chapter in software development, as the mozilla community that helped build the Gecko browsing engine now applies the technology to a wide range of exciting new applications and devices," said Bob Lisbonne, senior vice president of client products at Netscape. "Developers around the world are embracing Gecko due to its speed, small size, exceptional standards-support and open source."

Leading companies supporting Gecko and working with mozilla.org include:

  • Bradbury Software: The company that develops TopStyle, a cascading style sheet (CSS) editor for Windows 95/98 and Windows NT4. Among TopStyle's features is a real-time style preview, which hosts both Netscape Gecko and Microsoft Internet Explorer side-by-side. By taking advantage of both browsers, TopStyle enables Web authors to immediately see how changes to their style sheets will affect their entire site.

    "As a developer of Web authoring tools, I'm extremely pleased with Gecko's capabilities and adherence to Web standards," said Nick Bradbury, founder of Bradbury Software and creator of both TopStyle and Allaire's popular HomeSite HTML editor. "In particular, Gecko's CSS support is exceptional. Gecko provides a light-weight, standards-based rendering engine that offers a lot of power to both developers and Web authors."

  • CiTEC: With its DocZilla browser, CiTEC (based in Finland) is expanding Web technology with Gecko components for the handling of critical, complex and large information collections. CiTEC's modular extensions to Gecko include seamless handling of SGML, HyTime and XLink/Xpointer links and SGML and XML table markup languages.

    "When Netscape created mozilla.org last year and invited the world to help make the greatest browser, we found the offer to be irresistible," said Michael Leventhal of CiTEC Information Technology, developers of DocZilla. "The current architecture in Gecko has enabled CiTEC to do a much better job of plugging into and extending mozilla's core capabilities. This is a direct payback from open source development with its open scrutiny and discussion of ideas, feedback and pooling of the best minds on the Web."

  • Cyberworld International: An early adopter of Netscape's Gecko initiative, Cyberworld (based in Toronto) is implementing Gecko within its breakthrough multi-dimensional viewing technology to offer digital content creators and Web developers a visually compelling way to build, organize and present multimedia worlds. Cyberworld, which is dedicated to transforming the Web experience, is an ideal solution for e-commerce and on-line business development. Individuals, businesses and communities of interest can tap into Cyberworld's 3D visual interface to seamlessly navigate between 2D and 3D content such as pictures, video and sound in one easy-to-use integrated environment.

    "Netscape's open source initiative provides the development community with a tremendous amount of flexibility," said Sharleen Sy, vice president of marketing at Cyberworld. "By offering an alternative browser control that can be extended by developers, Netscape's Gecko creates a flexible and open development path that allows us to easily enhance the Cyberworld Viewer. With Gecko, Cyberworld will have the capacity to create an extremely robust, multi-dimensional multimedia alternative to traditional 3D browsers."

  • NeoPlanet: Developer of the innovative NeoPlanet "browser/portal," the company previewed NeoPlanet 5.0 featuring support for the Gecko browsing engine and will continue to leverage contributions from the open source model to enhance the ease-of-use of the Internet for consumers. By offering a choice of browsers with a consistent user interface, NeoPlanet enhances the ease-of-use of the Internet.

    "NeoPlanet believes a small, fast, standards-compliant rendering engine available as open source to all developers is in the interest of the Internet community as a whole, especially for end users," said Drew Cohen, president and CEO of NeoPlanet Inc. "NeoPlanet is actively contributing to mozilla, we have released a technology preview and are submitting changes on an almost daily basis. We now have full time staff dedicated to the effort and plan to hire more developers."

  • Sausage Software: Sausage (based in Australia), an Internet tools developer, is currently evaluating the use of the Netscape Gecko technology as an internal HTML rendering component for all the HotDog Web Authoring product family, SuperToolz
    applications and eCommerce tools. Wherever there is HTML preview in these products, there will be the option to preview in Gecko. HotDog, the company's flagship Web authoring tool, has consistently been one of the most popularly downloaded Web authoring tools in the world over the last three years.

    "Sausage is committed to supporting all available Internet technologies. The open source development of Gecko is important not only in terms of providing balance in Web browser technology, but ensuring that all standards put forward by the W3C are fully supported," said Andrew Walsh, general manager of Sausage Internet Tools. "Our initial trials with various builds of Gecko have been very promising. We predict that within a few days of Gecko's final release, our users will have access to an updated version of HotDog Professional, incorporating a Gecko preview option".

  • Telescan Imagicast: Telescan, the largest manufacturer of listening and viewing stations in retail stores with over 70,000 systems deployed worldwide, has chosen Gecko as its user interface and content browser for its next-generation point of purchase terminal.

    "We are excited by the opportunity to use Gecko's leading-edge architecture in our new device. Gecko shows great promise as a leading high-performance, standards-compliant browser engine and it is well ahead of current fourth-generation browsers in CSS support, an important feature for our application," said Tom Sharples, vice-chairman and CTO of Telescan Imagicast. "Gecko's modular structure and extensibility make it a good call for resource-tight embedded systems like ours. Since we don't need a full featured browser and are aiming for very low cost, Gecko's modularity and small size enable straightforward integration into our appliance. The Mozilla 'open source' model provides a cost-effective alternative to the heavy IP fees charged by commercial embedded browser vendors."

    Netscape is a leading provider of software and services for businesses that want to transform the way they create and keep customers in the emerging Net Economy. Recently acquired by America Online, Inc., Netscape is based in Mountain View, California. Mozilla.org is the organization that manages open source developers working on the next generation of Netscape's browser and communication software.

    Additional information on Netscape is available on the Internet at http://home.netscape.com, by sending email to info@netscape.com, or by calling corporate sales at 650/937-2555.

    For more information about Bradbury Software's TopStyle, please stop by http://www.bradsoft.com/topstyle/.

    Additional information on CiTEC is available on the Internet at http://www.doczilla.com.

    Readers visit the CYBERWORLD web site at http://www.cyberworldcorp.com.

    Additional information on NeoPlanet is available on the Internet at http://www.neoplanet.com.

    Additional information on Sausage Software is available on the Internet at http://www.sausage.com.

    Additional information on Telescan Imagicast is available on the Internet at http://www.imagicast.com.

    Netscape, Netscape Navigator and the Netscape N and Ship's Wheel logos are registered trademarks of Netscape in the United States and other countries. Other Netscape logos, product names, and service names are also trademarks of Netscape Communications, which may be registered in other countries. Other product and brand names are trademarks of their respective owners.