The main protagonists in the debate are Netscape, the innovator, pitched against Spyglass who is fighting from the standards corner. With Netscape s commanding 70 per cent market share of the browser market, there are a lot of users that have voted for Netscape with their FTP clients. Among others, we find Microsoft running with Spyglass, which is surprising given Microsoft s predilections for blazing its own trail.
Technical standards underpin the usefulness and success of any technology.
A well worn example is the telephone. Adherence to a standard ensures that virtually every telephone can call virtually any other telephone anywhere in the world. Modern life provides countless other examples ranging from fax machines, petrol star ratings, electricity and photographic film. The newest is the W3C, headed by Tim Berners Lee, the father of the Web. There is a lot of academic input in W3C but it has been balanced by some strong corporate involvement.