Netscape Chat -- The recent release of Microsoft's Internet Explorer apparently has Netscape Communications Corporation (NCC) more than a little worried. After an amazingly successful IPO and with a current estimated market share of 80%, NCC and its extremely popular Netscape Navigator web browser have dominated an increasingly important area of the Internet with little concern for competition...until now that is. The coinciding release, integration, and onslaught of Windows 95, the Microsoft Network, and Internet Explorer means trouble for many of Microsoft's competitors, especially NCC and online services. Out of this scenario comes NCC's latest attempt at ensuring that the Netscape Navigator browser remains the most popular web browser on the market. NCC has developed and released to the public two accessory clients that are designed to augment the power of Netscape and to demonstrate the possibilities of integration with the Netscape Navigator. These applications, Netscape Chat and Netscape SmartMarks, are the first commercial clients built upon the Netscape Client Application Programming Interface (NCAPI). I wouldn't be too surprised to see additional apps for Netscape arrive in the near future...hopefully with greatly improved integration as well. The first of these two new clients, Netscape Chat, is an adequate Internet Relay Client that offers one unique capability -- the ability to share web information by enabling users to send and view URLs with other group members. Concurrent and seamless access to a web page means more than just being able to share your favorite URLs with friends; it is likely to be extremely useful for business functions as well, including areas such as corporate training, marketing, public relations, product promotion, customer support, and more. While Netscape Chat will be useful for individual users, the real value will be to corporate users with a critical need to deliver web-related information to many other users. Netscape Chat also offers an array of additional features, including the ability to concurrently reside in multiple groups and three different chat communication modes -- personal conversations (one-to-one), group conferences (many-to-many), or auditoriums (one-to-many). Overall, while both WS-IRC or mIRC offer more features and are easier to use, neither will be able to offer the integrated web document sharing capability that Netscape Chat does. It will be quite interesting to see how this client and future clients from Netscape evolve. Pros: Web document sharing, multiple chat communication modes, integration with Netscape Cons: mIRC and WS-IRC offer more features and are easier to use New: Multi-paneled and resizable windows support, customizable address and phone books Version Reviewed: 2.0 Beta 7 Date of Review: 4/3/96 Reviewer: Forrest Stroud