If we start providing a product that isn’t interoperable with everybody else’s, we have no business.
Predictor: Andreessen, Marc
Prediction, in context:In a 1995 article for InfoWorld magazine, writer Nick Wingfield asks Marc Andreessen the question, “How are Netscape and Microsoft going to resolve the interoperability issues for browsers?” His answer: ”People expect the standards process to be rational and harmonious. I don’t know of a standards process that’s ever been rational. What happens is a lot of people innovate. We’re like 3Com or Cisco: If we start providing a product that isn’t interoperable with everybody else’s, we have no business. Customers walk away. We give away SSL [Secure Sockets Layer], we publish all the HTML extensions, we publish Secure Courier source code. We picked up Java because it looked like there was going to be enough industry support that we wouldn’t have to create something on our own.”
Biography:Marc Andreessen worked with Eric Bina at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois in 1992, to develop a browser that would be usable on any computer, easy to use and graphically rich. In 1993, their browser, Mosaic, completely changed the face of the Internet Ð it allowed HTML “image” tags which make it so text and art can appear on the same page; it allowed easy text scrolling; and it introduced hyperlinks, allowing users to simply click on an area of the screen to go to another document on the Internet. In1994, Mosaic was developed and marketed; the product eventually was named Netscape. (Pioneer/Originator.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Information Infrastructure
Subtopic: Language/Interface/Software
Name of publication: InfoWorld
Title, headline, chapter name: Interview: Marc Andreessen Tackles Internet Issues
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-03-1996/idgns.java.1995/idgns.java.1995.065.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Allen, Patrick J.