Interview with an insider

I sat down at the solid oak bar and ordered a pint of porter. Just as it arrived, an old acquaintance sat down next to me and broadcast a familiar wisecrack. "Nelson! Ready to drink darts and throw beers at each other?" A reference to some involuntarily slurred speech at a previous beer-a-thon.

After the required backpatting and handshaking, I ordered another pint for my friend and some fries. We cracked wise for an hour or so, laughing about our jobs, bitching about our jobs, and in general, whining about our jobs.

Once that vast well of subject matter dried up, the conversation turned to the the industry. Both our companies are -- hell, every company is -- finding itself drawn to the Web, as a medium to advertise, to reach new customers, or just to make a quick buck.

My friend wiped the froth from his upper lip and uttered a real mindblower. "I heard yesterday that Netscape was going to start building a new operating system."

What? Naaaw ... "I think you got that mixed up. A lot of people are comparing Netscape, and Java for that matter, as the replacement for the operating systems out there today. Just kind of a metaphor. That's all."

"No, I know that. I heard that Netscape formed a super-secret internal division, and they're working on a desktop OS. PC, Mac, SPARC ... they're going to take on Apple and Microsoft head-on."

"And Sun, if what you're saying is right. No way, I think you got it all backwards. Netscape, with Java, is creating a new set of APIs and services that can hide the operating system from a program, so it'll run on any machine. Heck, with Java's architecture, you don't even have to recompile."

"Look, I heard this from a friend at Netscape. I know what you're saying, but you don't understand. They've gotten a taste of success and now they want the whole pie."

I swigged the last of my porter and signalled the bartender for a third. "You're talking crazy. Netscape would be taking on a monumental task to do what you're saying."

"Yeah, but it makes sense. If Apple can't get their act together, there's a huge installed base of Mac hardware that'll be dying for a next-generation operating system. Microsoft's got a lock on PCs with Windows 95, sure, but if people are just turning on their machines to netsurf and maybe do a little Quicken or letter-writing, why do they need to install something as huge as Win95?"

"You're talking out your ass! Okay, Apple, maybe, but those people are in absolute love with MacOS. I really doubt Netscape could come up with a better UI. Plus, a new OS would run the risk of losing a huge base of applications."

Another chug and his beer was just foam on the inside of his glass. "It doesn't have to be better, just as good. I think Apple users are more pliable than you think. As long as it isn't as confusing as Windows, they'd be cool with it."

"But Microsoft? Netscape's not in any position to take Bill's bread-and-butter market. Microsoft will squash their nuts as soon as they get whiff of this."

"Yeah, well, Netscape's not a bunch of dummies. I figure they're so in bed with Sun that the UltraSPARC would be the first platform to feature 'King Kong'."

"'King Kong'?"

"Oh, that's the code name of the project. I think some other company was using 'Mothra', so they just switched genres. Makes sense, considering this is a real breakthrough product for Netscape."

I felt I was being initiated into an inner circle of Illuminatus, as though my friend was telling me who really shot Kennedy.

"Yeah, if its true. Now, wait a minute. You were saying that Sun would be the first platform?"

"Sure!" The bartender arrived with another set of porters. I suddenly realized he was kind of hovering near us, even though the bar was packed with twentysomethings and neo-geeks. Was he listening in? "Look, Sun's been trying to buy Apple for years now, its just that their negotiations only get a lot of press when Apple's in the can. Now, what would Sun do with Apple? Maybe nothing, just keep selling Macs like always, but a lot of people figured that Sun wanted to port System 7, or maybe Copeland, to their SPARCstations.

"Now, why would they want to do that? They laughed at Windows NT when it first came out, because it looked like such a toy compared to UNIX. Now that NT is encroaching on their market share with lightening speed, someone wised up and said that they need to friendly-ize their workstations and pronto. Since Apple fell through, Sun's stuck holding an empty bag.

"So, Netscape's been tinkering with this idea and says 'look, we'll take some of our technology, integrate Java, add a hardware independence layer and device drivers, and you've got your System 7 for SPARC."

Our conversation paused. Through a hops-and-yeast haze I realized I was starting to buy into this bullshit. How much of it could be true? This was the revelation of the decade. No one in their right mind would jump into the operating system arena at this point in time. It would take money, guts, smarts, market saavy, advertising, and a consumer base willing to test drive the beast until a sufficient set of applications had been ported.

Netscape. They were the only ones. They had all of the above, including the comsumer trust.

I picked up a french fry and put it back down. Cold and stiff, like the conversation had metamorphed into. I felt I was being initiated into an inner circle of Illuminatus, as though my friend was telling me who really shot Kennedy, or what the back of a dollar-bill means, or what galaxy the UFO in Hangar 18 came from.

But, damn it all, this was bigger. Netscape's 'King Kong' either proves that Andressen and company are certifiably insane or that they've got the biggest cajones this side of Greenwich.

"So," I mused, "what do you think their odds are?"

"Odds of what?"

"Well, you know ... winning."

"Oh! Well, let's back up. Odds of this even getting to market, I'd say four to one. That is, the Sun version. Getting the Apple and PC version out are worse, I'd say, maybe eight to one. Actually dominating? Hmm ... hundred to one. Maybe worse."

"Stiff odds. Don't you think someone at Sun is going to have a conniption and try and stop Netscape?"

"I'm sure there's been a few conniptions already, if Sun has really authorized this in any way whatsoever. But you gotta remember, McNealy is absolutely fanatical about destroying Gates' hold on the market. I bet he's got Gates' picture in his office to throws darts at. Maybe takes a Windows 95 CD to a shooting range for practice. Microsoft drives him nuts."

"Enough to hand over the reigns of his company's future to some undergrads down the street?"

"Undergrads licensing his language, propelling his hardware, and with a sole mission of decimating Bill Gates. Yes. I find it believable."

"Still sounds like a long shot."

"Well, those are the odds I'm giving, long shot odds. Look, Netscape and Microsoft both want to own the Internet. Microsoft is looking at it from the outside in, from the desktop out across the leased line into the cloud. Netscape is looking at it from the top down, from the cloud in towards the desktop. Who's got the better perspective?"

"Microsoft is inde-fucking-structible."

"IBM was bulletproof in the seventies and eighties. What are they up to now? Hawking OS/2, which is going nowehere, buying up Notes, which is going nowhere, trying to sell their RS/6000s, which are going nowhere. They're up against Microsoft, Netscape, and Sun, in that order, and they're just spinning their wheels."

"It's not that bad. IBM's the comeback kid."

"Yeah, but so much for 'inde-fucking-structible'."

I'd finished my beer. It was time to go. My head was swimming with hearsay and delusions of Netscape grandeur. Sun wasn't that in bed with Netscape. Team Mozilla knows they can't take on Microsoft head-to-head on the Evil Empire's own turf. Does the proliferation of the Web really create the demand for an Internet-centric operating system?

Maybe it does.