I know many will disagree, but I think computing is one industry where we needed "monopoly" companies to set standards.
People forget how it used to be when nothing worked with anything else.
The monopoly power becomes less important now that things are stabilising and standards are being set etc... but while things are developing it is better for someone to win and win quickly so everyone can then standardise and save time and money.
I think the only reason AOL bought Netscape was for the possibly legal threats they may want to try against MS. A bad reason IMHO.
It is very similar to how another big competitor to MS went wrong: Wordperfect. They got snapped up by the then dominant Novell who ran them into the ground and removed it as any viable threat to Word / Office.
I think Microsoft write some good software, despite what many people claim (yes, they do make gaffs though) but many times their competitors really "do it to themselves".
One of Netscapes problems is that they clung to an old buggy code base (ironically, the same base that IE came from - MS licensed the same code that Netscape 'misappropriated') whereas MS had the resources to re-write with version 3 and then overtook NS with version 4. By 5+ it was all over.
Hopefully, people will abandon Netscape and maybe give Opera the attention it deserves.
