Those factors include longer lead times on sales and a sales force as yet ill-prepared to sell through the complex suite of enterprise software it has been building as part of its Netscape ONE platform over the past year. It said it also plans to contract out its telemarketing activities, centralize its field support service and focus on building its direct sales channel. Netscape did beat its target this year by signing more than 800 new collaborative messaging customers. The overall amount of the messaging deals has gone down as Microsoft and Lotus have caught on to how successful we've been, and they've become competitive pricewise. They are trying to do so many things at the same time that each one has to be done exactly right to avoid a losing quarter.
Customers also seem willing to give the company time to sort things out.
A losing quarter doesn't affect us one way or the other. The New York-based company uses Navigator and is considering purchasing Netscape's Enterprise Server for its electronic commerce system. We're not thinking of changing to the Internet Explorer browser. Netscape is still the one we think of for Internet products. Dataquest Inc. said in mid-November 1997 that Navigator continued to hold the market lead, with 57.6 market share.