WINNER TAKE ALL: MICROSOFT V. NETSCAPE

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Of course, for a Web-based OS to have any real value to consumers, it has to have programs to run. To fill that hole, Netscape has entered into a tight alliance with Sun Microsystems, a high-end hardware and software company that has developed a Net-based programming language called Java. What makes Java special (besides its name, which comes from the take-no-prisoners, drink-no-decaf corporate culture at Sun) is that it is designed to run across the Internet on any computer. For Web programmers, this means their pages can do more than just display pictures. Java-enabled sites will be able to act as word processors, telephones and even (if you have a TV receiver hooked up to your computer) vcrs. And although Microsoft has tried to embrace Java--its new Explorer browser will run programs written in the language--it is still seen more as a strategic weapon for Netscape, since Java software could one day compete with Microsoft products such as Word and Excel.

But this will matter only if Net surfers are still using Netscape software when that day arrives. And while Netscape has a dominant market share these days, the company has been seeing a little more of Microsoft's shadow than Bark likes. "We have enormous appreciation, admiration and fear [of Microsoft]," he says. "But like I tell people: I love my brothers, but I don't let them eat my supper."

To keep from losing his supper, Barksdale has retained Gary Reback, a Silicon Valley lawyer who has built a reputation for bashing Microsoft. In early August, Reback mailed a legal letter bomb to the Justice Department's Antitrust Division on Netscape's behalf, accusing Microsoft of every anticompetitive behavior short of kidnapping programmers. The charges infuriated Gates, who has already battled Justice on antitrust issues. Worse, Reback's letter played right into the media's general portrayal of Netscape as a lonely underdog facing off against a cheating giant.

That courthouse seriousness, however, is in stark contrast to the playful tone that Barksdale has set inside Netscape. Conference rooms are whimsically named after cities, prisons and characters from Dr. Seuss (the Cat in the Hat Room). Barksdale regularly works the halls, passing out praise, spinning yarns and trying to make new employees--Netscape has 700 of them so far this year--feel welcome. The company also now encourages employees to take one three-day weekend a month, and last spring Barksdale shut the whole place down for a "Netscape Escape Day."

"Work less!" may seem like a strange motto for a company that's competing with Microsoft, where employees embrace the dramatic simplicity of "When I'm awake, I'm working." But plenty of others have tried to outwork Microsoft, and Gates has beaten them all. Barksdale's approach, at the very least, could someday lead to a kinder and gentler Valley culture. Whether Netscape's bottom line can hack that remains to be seen, but Bark believes his company deserves a little breathing room. "It's not a total win-lose game," he says. "I don't think anybody is going to have the dominant position in a network-centric world like they had in a desktop-centric world. I just cannot believe that." He pauses. "And I will tell you this: it will be a shame if they do."

Keep the forces concentrated in an overpowering mass. --Clausewitz