Mozilla Open Source Development Initiative Receives
CNET Builder.com 'Web Innovator of the Year' Award
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., May 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Netscape, a subsidiary of
America Online Inc. (NYSE: AOL), today announced growing momentum for Gecko,
its next-generation small, fast and standards-based browsing engine. More
than 10,000 open source developers have downloaded the software from
mozilla.org and leading companies including Bradbury Software, CiTEC,
Cyberworld, NeoPlanet, Sausage Software and Telescan Imagicast are working to
integrate it into their products. Netscape Gecko is the first software
product from Netscape based on contributions from mozilla.org, the
organization chartered with managing Netscape's open source initiative.
Earlier this month, CNET Builder.com awarded the second annual "Web Innovator
of the Year" award to mozilla.org.
(http://www.builder.com/Business/Innovators98/ss01.html).
"The mozilla.org staff are delighted that the Mozilla Organization has
received the Web Innovator of the Year award. This award belongs to all our
open source developers and participants who have contributed so much since the
beginning," said Brendan Eich, principal engineer of mozilla.org and recipient
of last year's Web Innovator of the Year award. "Through their efforts,
mozilla.org is poised to deliver the leading browser in the industry."
"We are witnessing a new chapter in software development, as the mozilla
community that helped build the Gecko browsing engine now applies the
technology to a wide range of exciting new applications and devices," said Bob
Lisbonne, senior vice president of client products at Netscape. "Developers
around the world are embracing Gecko due to its speed, small size, exceptional
standards-support and open source."
Leading companies supporting Gecko and working with mozilla.org include:
-- Bradbury Software: The company that develops TopStyle, a cascading
style sheet (CSS) editor for Windows 95/98 and Windows NT4. Among TopStyle's
features is a real-time style preview, which hosts both Netscape Gecko and
Microsoft Internet Explorer side-by-side. By taking advantage of both
browsers, TopStyle enables Web authors to immediately see how changes to their
style sheets will affect their entire site.
"As a developer of Web authoring tools, I'm extremely pleased with Gecko's
capabilities and adherence to Web standards," said Nick Bradbury, founder of
Bradbury Software and creator of both TopStyle and Allaire's popular HomeSite
HTML editor. "In particular, Gecko's CSS support is exceptional. Gecko
provides a light-weight, standards-based rendering engine that offers a lot of
power to both developers and Web authors."
-- CiTEC: With its DocZilla browser, CiTEC (based in Finland) is
expanding Web technology with Gecko components for the handling of critical,
complex and large information collections. CiTEC's modular extensions to
Gecko include seamless handling of SGML, HyTime and XLink/Xpointer links and
SGML and XML table markup languages.
"When Netscape created mozilla.org last year and invited the world to help
make the greatest browser, we found the offer to be irresistible," said
Michael Leventhal of CiTEC Information Technology, developers of DocZilla.
"The current architecture in Gecko has enabled CiTEC to do a much better job
of plugging into and extending mozilla's core capabilities. This is a direct
payback from open source development with its open scrutiny and discussion of
ideas, feedback and pooling of the best minds on the Web."
-- Cyberworld International: An early adopter of Netscape's Gecko
initiative, Cyberworld (based in Toronto) is implementing Gecko within its
breakthrough multi-dimensional viewing technology to offer digital content
creators and Web developers a visually compelling way to build, organize and
present multimedia worlds. Cyberworld, which is dedicated to transforming the
Web experience, is an ideal solution for e-commerce and on-line business
development. Individuals, businesses and communities of interest can tap into
Cyberworld's 3D visual interface to seamlessly navigate between 2D and 3D
content such as pictures, video and sound in one easy-to-use integrated
environment.
"Netscape's open source initiative provides the development community with
a tremendous amount of flexibility," said Sharleen Sy, vice president of
marketing at Cyberworld. "By offering an alternative browser control that can
be extended by developers, Netscape's Gecko creates a flexible and open
development path that allows us to easily enhance the Cyberworld Viewer. With
Gecko, Cyberworld will have the capacity to create an extremely robust, multi-
dimensional multimedia alternative to traditional 3D browsers."
-- NeoPlanet: Developer of the innovative NeoPlanet "browser/portal," the
company previewed NeoPlanet 5.0 featuring support for the Gecko browsing
engine and will continue to leverage contributions from the open source model
to enhance the ease-of-use of the Internet for consumers. By offering a
choice of browsers with a consistent user interface, NeoPlanet enhances the
ease-of-use of the Internet.
"NeoPlanet believes a small, fast, standards-compliant rendering engine
available as open source to all developers is in the interest of the Internet
community as a whole, especially for end users," said Drew Cohen, president
and CEO of NeoPlanet Inc. "NeoPlanet is actively contributing to mozilla, we
have released a technology preview and are submitting changes on an almost
daily basis. We now have full time staff dedicated to the effort and plan to
hire more developers."
-- Sausage Software: Sausage (based in Australia), an Internet tools
developer, is currently evaluating the use of the Netscape Gecko technology as
an internal HTML rendering component for all the HotDog Web Authoring product
family, SuperToolz applications and eCommerce tools. Wherever there is HTML
preview in these products, there will be the option to preview in Gecko.
HotDog, the company's flagship Web authoring tool, has consistently been one
of the most popularly downloaded Web authoring tools in the world over the
last three years.
"Sausage is committed to supporting all available Internet technologies.
The open source development of Gecko is important not only in terms of
providing balance in Web browser technology, but ensuring that all standards
put forward by the W3C are fully supported," said Andrew Walsh, general
manager of Sausage Internet Tools. "Our initial trials with various builds of
Gecko have been very promising. We predict that within a few days of Gecko's
final release, our users will have access to an updated version of HotDog
Professional, incorporating a Gecko preview option".
-- Telescan Imagicast: Telescan, the largest manufacturer of listening
and viewing stations in retail stores with over 70,000 systems deployed
worldwide, has chosen Gecko as its user interface and content browser for its
next-generation point of purchase terminal.
"We are excited by the opportunity to use Gecko's leading-edge
architecture in our new device. Gecko shows great promise as a leading
high-performance, standards-compliant browser engine and it is well ahead of
current fourth-generation browsers in CSS support, an important feature for
our application," said Tom Sharples, vice-chairman and CTO of Telescan
Imagicast. "Gecko's modular structure and extensibility make it a good call
for resource-tight embedded systems like ours. Since we don't need a full
featured browser and are aiming for very low cost, Gecko's modularity and
small size enable straightforward integration into our appliance. The Mozilla
'open source' model provides a cost-effective alternative to the heavy IP fees
charged by commercial embedded browser vendors."
Netscape is a leading provider of software and services for businesses
that want to transform the way they create and keep customers in the emerging
Net Economy. Recently acquired by America Online, Inc., Netscape is based in
Mountain View, California. Mozilla.org is the organization that manages open
source developers working on the next generation of Netscape's browser and
communication software.
Additional information on Netscape is available on the Internet at
http://home.netscape.com, by sending email to info@netscape.com, or by calling
corporate sales at 650/937-2555.
For more information about Bradbury Software's TopStyle, please stop by
http://www.bradsoft.com/topstyle/.
Additional information on CiTEC is available on the Internet at
http://www.doczilla.com.
Readers visit the CYBERWORLD web site at http://www.cyberworldcorp.com.
Additional information on NeoPlanet is available on the Internet at
http://www.neoplanet.com.
Additional information on Sausage Software is available on the Internet at
http://www.sausage.com.
Additional information on Telescan Imagicast is available on the Internet
at http://www.imagicast.com.
Netscape, Netscape Navigator and the Netscape N and Ship's Wheel logos are
registered trademarks of Netscape in the United States and other countries.
Other Netscape logos, product names, and service names are also trademarks of
Netscape Communications, which may be registered in other countries. Other
product and brand names are trademarks of their respective owners.
SOURCE Netscape
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