They actually had many choices. For me, that closes this case. Let Netscape find its niche, independent of Microsoft, let the market shake it out. IBM is investing in Apache now. That's what it takes to win.
Life is too short.
Technology moves too fast. It doesn't take much time before the fortresses are worthless. Another thing to check out. Netscape could have bought Apple and had their own OS with millions of users. In other words, they could have executed their kill-Windows strategy much more effectively.