The software company Netscape has suffered another setback, with its share price dropping by 21% following its warning of its first quarterly loss.

In Monday's trading it was the second most active issue on US markets. It hit an all-time low of $17.75 before closing at $18.56.

By Tuesday noon in New York its price had recovered slightly to $18.75.

Netscape expects to make a loss of $85m to $89m on sales of $125m to $130m, though all but $14 to 18m of the loss is due to restructuring costs and acquisitions.

Barksdale hints at free browser

Netscape's stand-alone browser sales dropped to 13% of its revenues, down from 18% in the third quarter in the face of competition from Microsoft's Internet Explorer, which is free of charge.

Netscape's boss Jim Barksdale has hinted that the company might make its own browser available free as well.

"We are now down almost 70 percent year over year in our dependence on stand-alone browser sales," he said.

"Therefore, we are in a position to make some changes that we will probably be announcing once those decisions are made, if they are made, in the next two weeks."

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