Andreessen Essay Research Paper Marc Andreessen is

Andreessen Essay, Research Paper

Marc Andreessen is the young co-founder and vice-president

of technology of Netscape

Communications Corporation. Netscape was founded by Andreessen and computer

scientist-entrepreneur Jim Clark to develop

and market an enhanced version of NCSA

Mosaic, the first Internet browser, which Andreessen had helped write

when he was an undergraduate at the University

of Illinois.

By following the unlikely strategy of giving away the

browser for free, Netscape has been able to make a lot of money. This

was done by first by establishing Netscape’s browser (called Netscape

Navigator) as the Internet standard, and then selling other kinds of network

software for Internet and corporate use.

Netscape’s initial public offering (IPO), the most

successful in Wall Street history, made Andreessen an instant multi-millionaire.

As a stellar example of today’s information age entrepreneur, Andreessen

has achieved a kind of celebrity status, and has made the cover of Time

Magazine as the pre-eminent "super geek" of his generation.

Since its founding, Netscape has achieved a dominant share

of the markets for Internet and intranet software at the same time that

it has fueled the astronomical growth of the Word Wide Web and fundamentally

shifted the software industry to a cross-platform, Internet-based standard.

Since the end of 1995 Netscape’s share of Internet and corporate

markets has come to be increasingly challenged by competitors, most notably

software giant Microsoft. In one

of the classic corporate campaigns in recent history, Microsoft has committed

its massive resources to recapturing the Internet from Netscape.

In the midst of Netscape’s struggles for market share

and survival, Marc Andreessen calmly continues in his role as long-term

strategist and visionary while under close scrutiny by the business community

and the media. At the same time, he lives a relatively quiet and modest

life with his fianc.e, Elizabeth Horn, in Mountain View, California.

******************

Marc Andreessen was born in July of 1971 in New Lisbon,

Wisconsin, an archetypal Midwestern town of about 1,500 people. His father,

a seed salesman, is now retired, and his mother works for catalogue clothier

Lands End.

Although school sports were the main focus of extracurricular

attention and the quickest road to popularity and status in Lisbon, the

6’4" Andreessen had little interests in athletics. While the

sporting teams practiced, Andreessen pursued an interest in computers

that began when he was in the fifth grade. At that time he learned Basic

programming language from a library book before ever laying hands on a

computer. In the sixth grade Andreessen used one of the school’s

computers to write a program with which he could do his math homework,

but the program was wiped out when a janitor turned off the power in the

building. A year later his parents made what must be considered one of

the great investments in business history when they bought Marc his own

computer, a Commodore

64. Andreessen then began his programming career writing games.

Andreessen was recognized early on as a superior and creative

intellect. His high school principal states that Andreessen had "an

intellectual capacity that could intimidate people," while teachers

and classmates remember him as generally likable and as having an excellent

sense of humor. They also recall that Andreessen had a rather offbeat

imagination; a proclivity to come up with rather different ideas on a

variety of subjects such as the nature of God and the future of science.

The Keys to Netscape: English and Philosophy

Andreessen went on to attend undergraduate school at the

University of Illinois. He recalls that in spite of his interest in computers,

he did not at first intend to pursue a career in computing because he

believed electrical engineering would offer more lucrative career choices.

"I ended up in computer science," he quips, "largely because

it required the least amount of work." Andreessen says his favorite

classes were English and philosophy, and credits his extra-technological

education with most of the skills and insights that led to his subsequent

success.

While pursuing his undergraduate degree, Andreessen worked

part-time as a programmer, for $6.85 per hour, at the university’s

National Center for Supercomputing

Applications (NCSA). Andreessen was working on an assignment to write

three-dimensional visualization software for the Center’s supercomputer

when he dreamed up and implemented the first Internet browser.

In the early 1990s, the Internet was primarily a tool

for elite researchers and a subculture of technophiles who have been likened

to ham ra

Внимание, отключите Adblock

Вы посетили наш сайт со включенным блокировщиком рекламы!
Ссылка для скачивания станет доступной сразу после отключения Adblock!

Скачать