Barksdale: competition is healthy

The ever-quotable Jim Barksdale, CEO of Netscape Communications, told agroup at the ITExpo this week that competition is healthy and thatconsumers would benefit from the Web browser wars. The bulk of Barksdale'skeynote address was devoted to a discussion of market share and thebrowser wars.

As for Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Barksdale said, it has only achievedabout 30% market share, despite the considerable cash and resourcesMicrosoft has thrown at it.

"Most people would call that a failure. Bill said the browser should befree. Well, I think the operating system should be free," he said, tocheers from the crowd.

When asked why Navigator (Netscape's browser) isn't free, Barksdale impliedthat there were strings attached to Microsoft's "free" browser. Accordingto Barksdale, Microsoft's free technology always ties customers into otherexpensive Microsoft software.

"Most people over the age of six know that free isn’t free. It’s like candyattached to a gossamer string that keeps getting tugged until you realizeyou are in a dark cave, and then you feel scared," he said.

Barksdale drew a little criticism from the crowd, however, when it wassuggested that his business model was based on scaring people away fromMicrosoft and not creating competitive products himself.

"We admire Microsoft; it is a great company," he said, backing down.

Barksdale said that his job was to point out the dangers of relying on asingle vendor for all of their computer software. Taking a stance familiarto anyone involved in the OS/2 vs. Windows or Apple vs. Microsoft debates,Barksdale pointed out that competition is the key to better software.

"Netscape is the best thing to happen to Microsoft shareholders," he said."The worst thing for Microsoft shareholders would be to not have aNetscape.