The Rise and Fall of Netscape Browsers (1998)

One of the points that gets overlook in Netscape's downfall is the company's decision to rewrite their browser. The company decided that their code base was too deficult to maintain so they went on a year+ quest to make a better engine. The result was a slower browser that was no better than it's previous version and could not complete with Microsoft's version. It was slower and had less features.

It was not the main reason for it's failure but the rewrite sucked resources that could have been used to compete.

In contrast Microsoft bought a browser and continue to improve it.

Ultimately the problem for Netscape was that it could not find a way to make a profit but the rewrite did not help.