[wjnc]

Netscape disbanded as a company in 2003. Why is TomTom still here?

I like the questions at the end of a company since a large market I work in (insurance / life insurance) is dwindling as well. What does that do with companies? How do they communicate? What happens when the inevitable shrinking sets in and your brain drain is faster than the way you shrink? Should you ever actively terminate a company and tranfer IP / assets?

[ghshephard]

Small Nit - Netscape was broken up into pieces and sold to Sun Microsystems and AOL in 1999 for $10B. Thank Mike Homer for the great timing and resolve to get out while the getting was still good.

[DonHopkins]

Selling Netscape's server group to AOL was just sadistic punishment.

[mardifoufs]

For who? Genuinely curious, I didnt even know Netscape has a server division. Was it punishment for the team working there because it broke their potential, or was it that AOL got ripped of because Netscape server tech was horrible?

Late 1990s/early 2000s acquisitions just always sound so wild to me! Insanely wasteful, or just even bizarre. Tons of old/traditional corporations trying to merge/buy their way into completely unrelated markets, oe in this case cash rich new megacorps like AOL that had immense potential just squandering insane amounts of capital with almost 0 RoI. Crazy times!

[ghshephard]

The Netscape Server products were amazing. High performing LDAP multi-master systems years ahead of its time, a calendar and email product that we used at companies years after Netscape was no more.

It was tragic that so many amazingly talented engineers ended up resting and vesting at AOL for years - but, at least they all scattered to the winds a few years after that and went to see other companies.

[prepend]

And just more of AOL being really stupid. It seemed more like corporate charity.

[TedDoesntTalk]

> since a large market I work in (insurance / life insurance) is dwindling

Out of curiosity, why is the life insurance market dwindling??

[hellisothers]

Less people with dependents (partners, kids)? Less people care or put thought into what happens after they die? Also anecdotally many/most peers I talk to about this say their company provides life insurance, I then point out the difference between this and actual term life insurance for when/if they change companies: “oh huh…”

[fennecfoxen]

Don't forget that life insurance used to come in a different form, "whole" life insurance (instead of term life insurance) which doubles as a savings/investment vehicle. This has changed a lot: people have other alternatives that are popular (401(k)s are basically everywhere), and life insurance companies are no longer able to offer the same kind of terms, especially given the ultra-low-interest-rate environment of 2008 to present.

[TedDoesntTalk]

This sounds like pure speculation, which is fine, and I appreciate your comment, but would also like to hear from the poster who made the original comment since he works in that industry.

[wjnc]

Thanks Ted. In the Netherlands it’s a combination of a few market trends. 1. A trick insurers pulled in the 90s and consumers never forgave us for (lending money in the late 90s for leveraged stock investments with massive cost loading; still ongoing litigation). 2. Mortgage rules changing making a certain type of life insurance ineligible for interest deduction (you used to be able to pay 5% interest, get that interest as income tax deductible thus returning 50+% of that interest and still get 5% interest in your deposit!) and 3. the very low interest rates making products generally less interesting.

Most insurers here have closed their books, with only a few products open for sales. A few larger insurers and hedge funds are buying portfolios in order to hopefully gain benefits of scale. There’s basically two ways of making money: better investment returns usually via more risky investments and cost savings. Since many of these products stem from 70s-90s IT modernization and cost saving is a real activity.

[throwaway2037]

Most growth in insurance is coming from developing countries at this point. They still have rapid economic and population growth.

[lozenge]

Transfer to who? All the people who know how to put the assets to good use... are already employed by TomTom.

As long as the company provides value to shareholders and customers, why wind it down? Not everything had to be about growth, growth, growth.

[wjnc]

Let me be the first to say that hardcore capitalism isn't my usual purview. And that exactly the diversity of stakeholders is why I like this question.

TomTom obviously offers no value to shareholders (no dividend policy, history of losses, perhaps except those searching for volatily). It's 49% owned by the directors with a 51% float. It clearly offers some value to customers since it has revenues. However, the revenues have been falling for a decade and most auto manufacturers seem able to procure these materials in-house.

It has value to 4500 employees who retain gainful employment at TomTom! But the financial metric to measure value added for those employees is lacking: TomTom is worth nearly nothing. Society would be better of 'cancelling' TomTom and letting all employees go to companies with higher added value to society. They could be teachers, nurses and researchers at companies that further the technical boundary. Instead, they are working for no value at all except their salaries. It's sad. (: Hyperbole.)

[usrusr]

Plenty of people working for negative value except for their salaries and whatever wins they provide company owners in the negative sum games they engage in.

[sokoloff]

> most auto manufacturers seem able to procure these materials in-house

Most auto manufacturers go outside for nav/infotainment units from suppliers like Here, MVI, Telenav, etc.

I don’t see any impenetrable barrier that TomTom couldn’t try to compete in that market (or as a data supplier to that market).

[alFReD-NSH]

They are in that market actually with major manufactures like BMW.

[scotty79]

> Netscape disbanded as a company in 2003. Why is TomTom still here?

Because they are selling raw map data to Google, Bing and Apple (maybe?).

[alFReD-NSH]

As long as they have their B2B deals, they are gonna be around.