(Column) - It's generally good to have multiple products in a particular sector to encourage competition for better prices and rapid innovation. But who needs more browsers? Although some of you might be feeling letdown with AOL's decision to cancel further development of Netscape, it's a respectable decision that should be celebrated. Ignoring it's paltry 0.6 percent market share, sticking with Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera is just right. Heck, I wouldn't mind seeing Opera shutdown its operations. It sure isn't contributing anything worthwhile. Tell me, what is Opera useful for? Those of you with Opera, can't you replace it with Firefox and be done with it? You wouldn't really miss it after a short mourning period.

A browser is a browser. They all do the same thing. Some better than others, but ultimately, it's about displaying standards compliant Websites, and Firefox is excellent. Personally, I would even recommend Microsoft kill off Internet Explorer and let Firefox takeover, but that's asking for a little too much considering Internet Explorer's marital status with Windows. The couple is inseparable. And hey, we should give Microsoft another chance, you know, for old time's sake.

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Today, it was Netscape. Tomorrow, I would like to see Opera go under. Yes, I know, I'm being a pessimist and asking a fine company to pack up and leave. Sorry. But I'm just thinking about my developer friends who have to make sure their Web apps and sites are operational on a host of different browsers just to please a few users who prefer to go against the tide. Not to promote Firefox too much, but it's an open source browser. Make it do whatever you feel like it. Ask for help with specific extension requests. Be creative, and let the barely alive browsers die a peaceful death. They deserve it after serving you with years of loyalty. And those of you who are maintaining these browsers, if your browser hasn't caught on yet, chances are it won't ever be popular. Focus your talent on creating an application with a real use. An application that people will enjoy on a mass market scale. Think big.

As Netscape and hopefully Opera shutdown, it will give developers less of a headache to not worry about managing these barely adopted browsers. Talk about productivity increase and happy developers. As far as I'm concerned, happy developers are fun developers, and fun developers introduce better features for mainstream products. That's IE and Firefox for you.

Sure, I understand neither IE (no surprise there) nor Firefox are perfect. They will get there soon. The Firefox core development team with assistance from its community is active and kicking, and Microsoft (I'm assuming) is also working to better IE with IE 8.0. With the two dominant browsers controlling more than 93 percent of the market, let's get rid of the 7 percent fat. After that, we'll have the top two browsers duke it out and create meaningful competition that will make the competitive landscape interesting.

So, sorry, Opera, but you need to quit with Netscape and just leave with pride.