Oracle Corp is considering buying Netscape Communications Corp if Netscape’s already depressed stock falls any lower. Ray Lane, president and chief operating officer at Oracle made the statement in an interview with Japanese daily Nihon Keizai Shimbun. Lane said other bidders could emerge and speculated that IBM Corp, Sun Microsystems Inc and America Online Inc could be among them. Netscape has seen its shares fall from more than $50 in July to just under $20 now. The company has seen its fortunes sink in the face of competition from Microsoft Corp and was eventually forced to give its browser away for free to be on even ground with Redmond. It has also restructured operations, cutting an estimated 400 jobs, which led to a $23m charge in its fourth quarter. Net loss for the quarter was $88.3m on revenue up 9% at $125.3m, compared to net income of $8.2m the year before. Net loss for the year was $115.5m and included total charges of $131.9m, including the restructuring. On Friday, Netscape closed unchanged at $19.1875.
