Network Computer

The Network Computer (or NC) was a diskless desktop computer device made by Oracle Corporation from about 1996 to 2000. The devices were designed and manufactured by an alliance, which included Sun Microsystems (acquired by Oracle in 2010), IBM, and others. The devices were designed with minimum specifications, based on the Network Computer Reference Profile. The brand was also employed as a marketing term to try to popularize this design of computer within enterprise and among consumers.

The failure of the NC to impact on the scale predicted by Larry Ellison 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. 1990s era NCs are often network-booted into a minimal Unix with X, to serve as X terminals. While NC purists may consider this to be a suboptimal use of NC hardware, the NCs work well as terminals, and are considerably cheaper than purpose-built terminal hardware.

The initial Network Computing standard, the Network Computer Reference Profile (NCRef), required that all 'NC' appliances supported HTML, Java, HTTP, JPEG, and other key standards.