THE STAGE HAS BEEN SET FOR A MAJOR PARADIGM SHIFT IN COMPUTING

The network computer aims to change the current computing paradigm. On May 20, several large computer companies took the first step toward making that change occur. Oracle Corp. of Redwood City, Calif. introduced the long awaited Network Computer Reference Suite, the first commercial implementation of the NC Reference Profile.

The profile is a set of guidelines for open network computing standards unveiled by Apple Computer, IBM, Netscape, Oracle and Sun Microsystems also on May 20. Oracle presented a combination of more than 30 manufacturers who plan to license the suite as well as technology and distribution partners who will work with Oracle to create a new industry for low-cost, easy-to-use devices for Internet and intranet environments.

The new box will be a low-cost computer with no hard drive of tape drive. It will contain main memory, CPU and extensive networking hardware and software. Applications programs and user data will reside on the network. Users will be charged a small fee for both network access as well as application usage. The most likely early adopters of network computers will be large corporations that have large numbers of information workers accessing databases. However, one analyst does not believe the solution will attract these buyers.

“ The interesting aspect of the announcement is that it appears to be a retrenching on the linkage of a specific hardware configuration and price point, and the concept of a network computer,” said Stephen Auditore, President of Zona Research Inc in Redwood City, Calif. “Defining the basic set of connectivity and communications standards needed to support access based computing is useful, but there does not appear to be anything in this announcement which will lead to widespread use of non-Windows desktops in the enterprise.”

The NC Reference Profile does not limit designs to a specific set of features, nor does it specify an implementation for a device. Products complying with the planned NC Reference Profile can include conventional PCs, videophones, wireless devices, and end-user devices without persistent storage.

“ The first casualty of the NC Reference Profile may well be the $500 network computer as defined by Oracle,” added Greg Blatnik, Zona Research Vice President. “By not specifying a particular hardware implementation, this initiative may weaken the case for the a low cost, non-Windows device for the enterprise.”

By contrast, Richard Finkelstein, president of Performance Computing, Inc. in Chicago, Ill. disagrees. He says the network computer plays to a long-term trend toward server-centric computing and away from client-centric computing.

“ The benefit of this approach is that it is easy to distribute and upgrade applications and every desktop NC is running the same version of the software,” Finkelstein explains. “To minimize the time to load applications over a network, NCs will be able to permanently stage software on local files. At startup, the NC checks to see if a new version of the software has been installed, in which case it will automatically download the most recent version. If the NC is already using the ‘latest-and-greatest,’ it will revert to the locally stored version.

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