Mozilla tramples IE

 Newsgroups: rec.humor.funny
 Oganization: Netscape Communications Corp.
 Subject: Mozilla stomps IE
 From: francis@netscape.com (John Francis Stracke)
 Date: Sat, 4 Oct 97 3:20:05 EDT

Well, keep in mind that I did not see how it was; I was told when everything was over, and showed the result. But:

Last midnight (from 30.09 to 1.10), Mr. Bill’s new browser, IE 4.0, was released. Between midnight and 1:30, someone (who could it be?) Dragged a huge IE symbol and placed it on the lawn in front of the Netscape building. The design was metal, thick enough to stand up. They probably thought that we would not notice anything until the morning; in the meantime, we will have time to adjust the technique in order to remove the sculpture, the reporters will have time to photograph it. We will not be able to go to court because we don’t have any evidence on MS, and we’ll look like offended nerds.

Needless to say, MS screwed up. They forgot that we are still at work at midnight! Someone noticed a new ornament on the lawn, and did not lose in vain the strength to try to remove it. They decided to show Bill what they are worth: they gathered everyone they could find, knocked the symbol down, and wrote a can of Netscape Now on their side. Then they dragged our two-meter figure to Mozilla (the Netscape monster mascot), and placed it on top of the IE logo.
')


Now Mozilla was standing on the body of the defeated opponent with a contented grin, raising his thumb. Reporters walked around and filmed. He was shown on television and in local newspapers; they say even Reuters has a report. We are not enthusiastic about the fact that the case went public, everything is too childish ... But they were the first to start! :-)

Reuters: Microsoft after joining jokes on Netscape

06:49, 2 October 1997

Mountain View, California: Apparently, the festive event, which was attended by 1,000 people on Wednesday night, was not enough for some Microsoft employees. At the end of the holiday, they wanted to play a trick on their rivals in the development of Internet programs, the Netscape Communications company.

Netscape employees discovered in the morning, in front of their front door, a huge blue e-shaped decoration.

The day before, a 3x4 meter shape — in the form of the Internet Explorer logo, a Microsoft web browser — was seen at a Microsoft corporate party in San Francisco. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates and about 1,000 employees of the company celebrated the release of the latest version of IE.

Around 1:30 on Wednesday, in front of Netscape's headquarters in Mountain View, they saw a group of people unloading a giant “e,” according to Chris Holten, representing Netscape. She added that a note was attached to the scenery: “from IE developers.”

“It seems to me that it’s just not serious to use student tricks to get attention,” Holten said. “We are the industry leader. Such a stunt could have been expected from a daring startup, but not from the world's largest software company. ”

We were unable to get comments about what happened from Microsoft.

Netscape and Microsoft have been fighting for the web browser market for two years now. By most estimates, the share of the Netscape Navigator browser is about ¾, but Microsoft is quickly catching up with each new release of Internet Explorer.

This time, Netscape laughed afterwards: their employees hoisted a four-meter foam blue figure of their talisman, a green Godzilla-like monster, called Mozilla, onto the blue “e”.

At the foot of Mozilla, there is a sign: “Netscape - 72, Microsoft - 18”, which gives the latest data on browser shares on the market.