Writeside Review: The Network Computer

The antidote to bloated applications and expensive hardware.

On Monday, May 20, five major companies—Apple, IBM, Netscape, Oracle and Sun—announced Reference Profile 1 for the much-debated Network Computer. The Network Computer, or NC, has long been championed by Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison as the $500 antidote to bloated applications and expensive hardware; with the NC, the logic goes, users would call on applications and storage space which reside on the network (specifically, the Internet) for use as needed.

(Editor's note: the Network Computer was ahead of its time. But Ellison has returned with an updated, $200 variant, the New Internet Computer.)

The Reference Profile 1 specification outlines minimum requirements for meeting the NC spec; the final specification is expected to be completed by August. These requirements include:

A minimum screen resolution of 640x480 (VGA) or equivalent.
A pointing device.
Text input capability.
Audio output.
Internet Protocol support, including mail protocols.
Support for World Wide Web standards, including HTML, HTTP and Java.

In addition, Reference Profile 1 calls for basic multimedia support (the AU, GIF, JPEG and WAV file formats)—this is likely to be significantly expanded before the final specification. Apple, for example, hopes to have its QuickTime Media Layer (QuickTime, QuickTime VR, QuickDraw 3D) included in the specification by August. Adobe (the Bravo graphics engine) and Macromedia (Shockwave) hope to have their products included as well.

While neither Intel nor Microsoft is among the announced endorsers of the platform-neutral NC, a number of other big names are, including Canon, Corel, Digital, Motorola, NEC and Toshiba. Several major consumer electronics companies—including Akai, Hitachi and Matsushita—have also signed on, as have MasterCard and Visa. What's more, several non-endorsers have announced plans for NC-like products: Acer plans to offer an inexpensive computer utilizing Iomega's popular Zip drive for storage, Sega will offer a $199 "Saturn Net Link" for its popular game console, and Zenith will market a 28.8 Kbps modem-equipped TV, the "NetVision," this fall.

When the NC was first announced, many scoffed at its prospects: how could such a humble device hope to supplant the thoroughly entrenched PC? Fewer people are laughing now. The NC is not intended to replace the PC, after all, but to supplement it—and the NC consortium has done an excellent job of paving the way for this new class of Internet access. The products which result are likely to change the way we think about, and use, the Web.

(Reviewed May 27, 1996)

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