Every major player in Techland wants to create the next great platform, of course. What's new here is that it's possible for any number of them to succeed. "Among the things that are different from the old status quo is the idea that one will win," says Marc Andreessen, who helped write the first widely adopted browser, Mosaic, which popularized the Web. The Internet is a much larger playing field than PC operating systems. "Trying to decide which will win," Andreessen adds, "is kind of like debating whether beef, chicken or lobster is going to win the market for food."