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weaving the web

over the years, and had always been interested in fostering joint efforts between the Old World and the New. I had hit not a snag, but one of Michael's hot buttons. We returned to LCS with joint enthusiasm and warmth.

Michael later introduced me to his associate director, Al Vezza, who had helped Bob Scheifler set up the X Consortium and run it from LCS for years. Al took me into his office and asked me blunt questions about the business end of a consortium, questions to which I had no answers, questions about the organization structure and the business model. Fortunately, Al had answers. He had set up these kinds of things for the X Consortium, and was happy to do the same again. The X Consortium plan had been so well defined that Al ended up convincing me to follow a similar model. CERN clearly had first option to be the European host. Michael, Al, and I had pretty much assumed that CERN would sign on. I returned to Geneva and began a series of talks about CERN assuming this new role.

As the talks ensued, Marc Andreessen, who had left NCSA to join Enterprise Integration Technology (EIT), had met businessman Jim Clark. Together they founded Mosaic Communications Corp. The two rapidly hired Lou Montulli of Lynx fame, hired away the core Mosaic development team from NCSA, and set out to commercialize their browser. They'd soon relocate to Mountain View, California, and in April 1994 would rename themselves Netscape.

Despite the news articles hailing it as the first step of an Internet revolution, Netscape's start was very natural. The Mosaic team, unlike any of the other browser teams, had always operated much more like a product development team than a research team. They were much more aware of Mosaic's branding, of customer relations, marketing, and delivery. NCSA deliberately adapted Mosaic for multiple platforms so it would reach a large audience. Unlike CERN, NCSA never doubted for a moment that creating commercial products was an appropriate

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