Mar 23, 2006 10:44 AM
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San Francisco, 6:05 AM
Wed Feb 10
56 posts in the last 24 hours
A harsh history of Netscape from a tipster called "The Wall's Ear" particularly trashed Jeremy Liew for "running what was a flagging but sustainable Netscape brand into crap." Liew e-mailed ex-co-workers and colleagues, who rallied for him in the comment threads. They were as fiercely protective of the boy as the The Wall's Ear was condemning.
From a former head of Netscape finance:
Fact: The first year under Liew's tenure Netscape reversed its declining revenue and profitability trend, all while building the new portal and browser. READ CLOSELY - 10 YEARS OF REVENUE DECLINE. None of his predecessors failed to stop the bleeding.
From the VP of AOL/Netscape client Mercurial Communications:
I post my defense because I have respect for Jeremy's intelligence and his acumen. And also his courage to innovate - and subsequently his performance at the helm of Netscape.
From the Netscape browser's ex-product manager:
During Jeremy's tenure, the Netscape business unit saw more success in his two years vs ANY other time period since AOL acquired them in the late 90s. Working for Jeremy has been the best experience of my professional career and I will do my best to work with him again in the future.
In short, the execs love him. Does that mean anti-Liew tipster "The Wall's Ear" is a disgruntled peon? After the jump, the pseudonymous tipster lashes out again.
Earlier: Guest story: Netscape fallout laid out [Valleywag]
Then: Hi, friends of Jeremy Liew! Bear with us. [Valleywag]
An e-mail from "The Wall's Ear":
The people you want to hear from about Jeremy aren't the execs that worked for him(they're almost as responsible) or Mercurial, who got paid to screw up the browser. Though to be fair there's only so much they could do with the bad ideas and requirements they got.You need to hear from the people that spent countless late hours working on products that got shutdown after they launched because no one used it. You need to asked Mr. Liew why he left Netscape, ask why his Flash Netscape portal was turned off so fast.
Someone please stop these executives that just skip from one job to next leaving failure and unemployment in their wake. But that would mean people would have to be accoutable and we can't have something crazy like that going around, now can we?
Ouch. We'll let the rest of this drama play out in the comments. Call me if anyone reaches a truce.
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