When the Mozilla project began as a continuation of the former Netscape Web browser, it walked a line very close to its progenitor. The Mozilla browser, as it was generally known, presented an all-in-one desktop client for common Internet tasks-primarily Web browsing and e-mail, with basic chat and an HTML editor included for additional flexibility and productivity. Over time, Mozilla leaders concluded that the unified Mozilla browser lacked the competitive sizzle they were looking for, and split the product up into two major components: the Firefox browser and the Thunderbird e-mail client. The Mozilla unified browser quickly became an afterthought among the core developers and was ultimately abandoned.
A continuing ongoing effort is working to bring the "suite"-based Mozilla browser back to some prominence, however. Now known as Seamonkey (an early code name for Mozilla) and developed by a group operating under the banner of the Seamonkey Council with some support from the Mozilla Foundation, development continues on what some view as the true successor to the iconic Netscape Communicator series.
On behalf of the Seamonkey developers, Mozilla recently filed for formal US trademark protection for the Seamonkey logo and moniker, a process due to finish in roughly three months. Seamonkey's new development team seem optimistic about recapturing mind and market share lost by users who preferred the unified suite popularized by Netscape and later by the original Mozilla browser. But with Mozilla's corporate marketing efforts all pointed squarely at the Firefox and Thunderbird offshoots, Seamonkey may continue to splash in a comparatively shallow pool.
