Spyglass, Inc. (NASDAQ: SPYG), was an internet software company based in Champaign, Illinois. The company, founded in 1990, was an offshoot of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and created to commercialize and support technologies from the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA). Prominent among these was the Mosaic browser, of which Spyglass licensed the technology and trademarks to develop their own Web browser. The source code of Spyglass Mosaic was licensed to Microsoft and became the basis for their Internet Explorer. NASDAQ in Times Square, New York City. ... This article is about the Illinois city Champaign. ... MCMXC redirects here; for the Enigma album, see MCMXC a. ... The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), is the largest campus in the University of Illinois system. ... National Center for Supercomputing Applications NCSA Building, 1205 W. Clark St. ... Mosaic was the first popular World Wide Web browser and Gopher client. ... Source code (commonly just source or code) is any series of statements written in some human-readable computer programming language. ... Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKSE: 4338) is a multinational computer technology corporation with global annual revenue of US$44. ... It has been suggested that Internet Explorer 7 be merged into this article or section. ...

The Browser Wars

Main article: Browser wars

About window of Internet Explorer 6.0 on Windows XP SP2. Scrolled to where it says "Distributed under a licensing agreement with Spyglass, Inc."

Netscape Communications Corporation, co-founded by Marc Andreessen, released its flagship Netscape Navigator browser in October 1994, and shortly Netscape was becoming the industry leader. Microsoft quickly recognized the potential of the web, and wanting to get into the browser game as soon as possible, decided to license an existing browser rather than build one from scratch. A rough estimation of the usage share of major web browsers by layout engines over time. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... It has been suggested that Internet Explorer 7 be merged into this article or section. ... Windows XP is a line of proprietary operating systems developed by Microsoft for use on general-purpose computer systems, including home and business desktops, notebook computers, and media centers. ... Netscape Communications Corporation was the publisher of the Netscape Navigator web browser as well as many other internet and intranet client and server software products. ... Plaque commemorating the creation of Mosaic web browser by Bina and Andreessen, new NCSA building, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. ... Netscape Navigator, also known as Netscape, was a proprietary web browser that was popular during the 1990s. ...

After unsuccessfully trying to license the Netscape Navigator browser, Microsoft turned to Spyglass and their Mosaic. In 1995, Microsoft licensed Mosaic from Spyglass as the basis of Internet Explorer 1.0, which was released as an add-on to Windows 95 in the Microsoft Plus! software package. The deal stipulated that Spyglass would receive a base quarterly fee for the Mosaic license plus a royalty from Microsoft's Internet Explorer revenue. Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented graphical user interface-based operating system. ... Microsoft Plus! is an operating system enhancement package provided by Microsoft. ...

Microsoft subsequently bundled Internet Explorer with Windows, and thus (making no direct revenues on IE) paid only the minimum quarterly fee. In 1997, Spyglass threatened Microsoft with a contractual audit, in response to which Microsoft settled for US$8 million.^[1]

All versions of the Internet Explorer created before Internet Explorer 7 (released October 17, 2006) acknowledged Spyglass as the licensor for the IE browser code in the about screens seen as "Distributed under a licensing agreement with Spyglass, Inc."

The end of Spyglass

On March 26, 2000, OpenTV bought out Spyglass in a stock swap worth $2.5 billion. The acquisition was completed July 24, 2000. In the deal, they received both Device Mosaic, an embedded web browser, and Prism, a content delivery and transformation system.^[2] March 26 is the 85th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (86th in leap years). ... 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The current version of the article or section reads like an advertisement. ... July 24 is the 205th day (206th in leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar, with 160 days remaining. ... 2000 (MM) was a leap year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• Brief profile of Spyglass from www.panix.com
• Brief profile of Spyglass from www.omimo.be

References

1. ^ Thurrott, Paul (1997-01-22). Microsoft and Spyglass kiss and make up. Retrieved on 2006 December 24.
2. ^ Boulton, Clint. "OpenTV Buys Spyglass", 2000-03-27. Retrieved on 2006-12-24.