The Network Computer (or NC) was a diskless

desktop computer A desktop computer (often abbreviated desktop) is a personal computer designed for regular use at a single location on or near a desk due to its size and power requirements. The most common configuration has a case that houses the power supply ...

device made by

Oracle Corporation Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells da ...

from about 1996 to 2000. The devices were designed and manufactured by an alliance, which included

Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, the ...

, IBM, and others. The devices were designed with minimum specifications, based on the

Network Computer Reference Profile Network Computer Reference Profile (NC reference profile, NCRP) was a specification for a network computer put forward by Oracle Corporation, endorsed by Sun Microsystems, IBM, Apple Computer, and Netscape, and finalized in 1996. NC1 The first v ...

. The brand was also employed as a

marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...

term to try to popularize this design of computer within enterprise and among consumers. The NC brand was mainly intended to inspire a range of desktop computers from various suppliers that, by virtue of their diskless design and use of inexpensive components and software, were cheaper and easier to manage than standard

fat client In nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food. The term often refers specifically to triglycerides (triple est ...

desktops. However, due to the

commoditization In business literature, commoditization is defined as the process by which goods that have economic value and are distinguishable in terms of attributes (uniqueness or brand) end up becoming simple commodities in the eyes of the market or consu ...

of standard desktop components, and due to the increasing availability and popularity of various software options for using full desktops as

diskless node A diskless node (or diskless workstation) is a workstation or personal computer without disk drives, which employs network booting to load its operating system from a server. (A computer may also be said to ''act as a diskless node'', if its disks ...

thin client In computer networking, a thin client is a simple (low-performance) computer that has been optimized for establishing a remote connection with a server-based computing environment. They are sometimes known as ''network computers'', or in th ...

s, and

hybrid client A diskless node (or diskless workstation) is a workstation or personal computer without disk drives, which employs network booting to load its operating system from a server. (A computer may also be said to ''act as a diskless node'', if its disks ...

s, the Network Computer brand never achieved the popularity hoped for by Oracle and was eventually mothballed. The term "network computer" is now used for any diskless

or a

History

The failure of the NC to impact on the scale predicted by

Larry Ellison Lawrence Joseph Ellison (born August 17, 1944) is an American business magnate and investor who is the co-founder, executive chairman, chief technology officer (CTO) and former chief executive officer (CEO) of the American computer technology ...

may have been caused by a number of factors. Firstly, prices of PCs quickly fell below $1000, making the competition very hard. Secondly, the software available for NCs was neither mature nor open. Thirdly, the idea could simply have been ahead of its time, as at the NC's launch in 1996, the typical home

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

connection was only a 28.8 kbit/s modem

dialup Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to establish a connection to an Internet service provider (ISP) by dialing a telephone number on a conventional telepho ...

. This was simply insufficient for the delivery of

executable In computing, executable code, an executable file, or an executable program, sometimes simply referred to as an executable or binary, causes a computer "to perform indicated tasks according to encoded instruction (computer science), instructi ...

content. The

World Wide Web The World Wide Web (WWW), commonly known as the Web, is an information system enabling documents and other web resources to be accessed over the Internet. Documents and downloadable media are made available to the network through web se ...

itself was not considered mainstream until its breakout year, 1998. Prior to this, very few

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise private ...

s advertised in mainstream press (at least outside of the US), and knowledge of the Internet was limited. This could have held back uptake of what would be seen as a very niche device with no (then) obvious appeal. NCs ended up being used as the very 'dumb terminals' they were intended to replace, as the

proprietary {{Short pages monitor

Acorn Network Computer

The

Acorn Network Computer The Acorn Network Computer was a network computer (a type of thin client) designed and manufactured by Acorn Computers Ltd. It was the implementation of the Network Computer Reference Profile that Oracle Corporation commissioned Acorn to specify ...

was Oracle's initial

reference implementation In the software development process, a reference implementation (or, less frequently, sample implementation or model implementation) is a program that implements all requirements from a corresponding specification. The reference implementation o ...

of the NC. Its development was subcontracted to British company

Acorn Computers Acorn Computers Ltd. was a British computer company established in Cambridge, England, in 1978. The company produced a number of computers which were especially popular in the United Kingdom, UK, including the Acorn Electron and the Acorn Archi ...

, who adapted its own to create

NCOS A non-commissioned officer (NCO) is a military officer who has not pursued a commission. Non-commissioned officers usually earn their position of authority by promotion through the enlisted ranks. (Non-officers, which includes most or all enli ...

. Acorn made use of local partner companies ANT, Icon Technology and Design Edge to fulfil their contract.

Macintosh NC

In 1997 Apple announced the Mac NC, its attempt to develop the

Pippin Pippin or Pepin may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Pippin'' (comics), a children's comic produced from 1966 to 1986 * ''Pippin'' (musical), a Broadway musical by Stephen Schwartz loosely based on the life of Pepin the Hunchback * Pippin T ...

into a network computer platform. By the end of 1997, Steve Jobs discontinued all

Macintosh clone A Macintosh clone, also known as a Clonintosh (a portmanteau of "Clone (computing), Clone" and "Macintosh"), is a computer running the Mac OS operating system that was not produced by Apple Inc. The earliest Mac clones were based on Macintosh clon ...

efforts, effectively killing the Pippin, although key components of the Mac NC technology were inherited by the original

iMac iMac is a family of all-in-one Mac desktop computers designed and built by Apple Inc. It has been the primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since its debut in August 1998, and has evolved through seven distinct forms. In it ...

NetProducts NetStation

The first generation NetStation design and the NetStation

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from others ...

was licensed to NChannel, which provided the consumer equipment and Internet service (with associated infrastructure) for the UK market. After a few months, NChannel split into two entities: NetChannel (which provided the Internet service) and NetProducts which provided the consumer hardware. NetProducts started working with Acorn to develop a next-generation product, NetStation II and started developing an

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

-only set-top-box (the TVemail). NetProducts went into voluntary

liquidation Liquidation is the process in accounting by which a company is brought to an end in Canada, United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, and many other countries. The assets and property of the company are redistrib ...

in 1998 before either project was completed.

Sun Microsystems JavaStation

developed the

JavaStation The JavaStation was a Network Computer (NC) developed by Sun Microsystems between 1996 and 2000, intended to run only Java applications. The hardware is based on the design of the Sun SPARCstation series, a very successful line of UNIX workstatio ...

, a

JavaOS JavaOS is an operating system based on a Java virtual machine and predominantly used on SIM cards to run applications on behalf of operators and security services. It was originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Unlike Microsoft Windows, Windows, ...

-based NC based on

SPARC SPARC (Scalable Processor Architecture) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture originally developed by Sun Microsystems. Its design was strongly influenced by the experimental Berkeley RISC system developed ...

hardware, initially similar to Sun's range of Unix

workstation A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...

IBM Network Station

IBM launched its Network Station in September 1996. As with the later reference design, the Network Station used a NetBSD-based NCOS booted over a LAN from an

AS/400 The IBM AS/400 (Application System/400) is a family of midrange computers from IBM announced in June 1988 and released in August 1988. It was the successor to the System/36 and System/38 platforms, and ran the OS/400 operating system. Lower-cost ...

IBM PC The IBM Personal Computer (model 5150, commonly known as the IBM PC) is the first microcomputer released in the IBM PC model line and the basis for the IBM PC compatible de facto standard. Released on August 12, 1981, it was created by a team ...

server. The Network Station supported local execution of basic applications, such as a

web browser A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's screen. Browsers are used on ...

and

console Console may refer to: Computing and video games * System console, a physical device to operate a computer ** Virtual console, a user interface for multiple computer consoles on one device ** Command-line interface, a method of interacting with ...

. In addition, X capability was also implemented to allow both locally and remotely run applications to be used on the same machine. In practice, the lack of real applications meant that this was little more than a hardware

X terminal In computing, an X terminal is a display/input terminal for X Window System client applications. X terminals enjoyed a period of popularity in the early 1990s when they offered a lower total cost of ownership alternative to a full Unix workstati ...

. The IBM Network Station was originally based on the

PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

architecture, but the final few models used

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

Pentium Pentium is a brand used for a series of x86 architecture-compatible microprocessors produced by Intel. The original Pentium processor from which the brand took its name was first released on March 22, 1993. After that, the Pentium II and Pe ...

processors.

Contemporary analogy

The idea behind the NC can be seen as existing in contemporary times in the system of

cloud computing Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage ( cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over mul ...

and in particular

ChromeOS ChromeOS, sometimes stylized as chromeOS and formerly styled as Chrome OS, is a Linux-based operating system designed by Google. It is derived from the open-source ChromiumOS and uses the Google Chrome web browser as its principal user interfac ...

. In

Wired magazine ''Wired'' (stylized as ''WIRED'') is a monthly American magazine, published in print and online magazine, online editions, that focuses on how emerging technologies affect culture, the economy, and politics. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquar ...

, Daniel Roth claims that the failure of the network computer eventually led to the development of cloud computing. A large contribution to this transition was attributed to

Eric Schmidt Eric Emerson Schmidt (born April 27, 1955) is an American businessman and software engineer known for being the CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011, executive chairman of Google from 2011 to 2015, executive chairman of Alphabet Inc. from 2015 to 20 ...

, once the CTO of

, a proponent of the network computer, who eventually became the CEO of

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

. Google is a large purveyor of cloud technology, "most notably Google Docs and Spreadsheets".

References

{{Reflist

External links

FAQ from the network computers Usenet newsgroup
* Contemporary press coverage of early NC pre-announcements: https://archive.today/20130119192531/http://news.com.com/Oracle+down+to+brass+tacks+for+NC/2100-1001_3-243680.html Oracle hardware Classes of computers