[sametmax]

Yes, and JS was not the center of it at all. Support was inconsistent, it was slow, leaked memory...

Actually, most actors tried to find a way to replace JS with something in house (ActionScript, ActiveX, Java applets) so they could dominate the market.

[pcwalton]

Most scripting languages were slow at that point, and memory leaks are still rampant in popular browser engines. Microsoft had an enormous team working on "JScript". I wouldn't be surprised if the size of that team significantly exceeded the size of the V8 team in the early days.

Netscape and later Mozilla were also heavily investing in JavaScript long before Google came on the scene.