AOL announced that Netscape is officially dead!

Many readers are too young or were not involved in the Internet to remember the Netscape-Microsoft browser wars of the mid-1990s. In fact many do not remember that Netscape was the Google of 1995-1997. Netscape's public offering in the summer of 1995 started a rush of Internet IPOs - the likes of which will probably never be seen again.

Netscape and not Yahoo was the real excitement of the early days of the Internet. Founder Jim Clark along with Jim Barksdale and Mark Andreesen were the rock starts of the Internet for a number of years. Relatively speaking they were bigger stars than the Google trio of today - Paige, Brin and Schmidt.

Netscape seemed forever. Google seems forever today. I cannot fathom Google being replaced or becoming outdated in the future. However, I probably felt the same way about Netscape back in 1996.

Netscape made a huge mistake by attemtping to become a significant company for the Enterprise. Microsoft attacked and the rest is history.

Google seems set on taking on Microsoft today. Google has a better plan. Internet applications are a much better thought than getting into Enterprise equipment.

Now that Netscape is dead, what is the future of AOL? While they have made lots of management changes, I doubt AOL will grow significantly in the future. It is time for Time Warner to sell off AOL and reap whatever large cash influx they can get. My guess is that AOL will decline in value in coming years. Time Warner should cash out now.