The Network Computer and the NetPC.

The NetPC and NC offer much of the same. They both promise lower administration costs greater use of available network resources and a thinner client on the desktop that costs less to purchase and maintain.

The NetPC has to its advantage its foundation in the Windows platform. It is built upon a large installed base and will probably succeed quickly because it is more of the same. The most exciting thing about the NetPC standard is the lowering of administration costs. A decade ago, a slotless, plug-and-play computer was called a Macintosh Plus. The idea of holding user data on a central server is standard for Unix clusters. The ideas presented by the NetPC are not new, but the current implementation is more sophisticated than in the past.

To its advantage, the NC has lower estimated administration costs per device installed. It has another advantage in that it is based on existing published standards. Windows is standard as well, but no third parties are implementing Win32 compatible systems. Java is also better able to adapt to the current and future environment because it can coexist with another operating system. That it can exist with MacOS, OS/390, Windows, Solaris, AIX, etc. is probably its biggest strength. The rate of growth of Java APIs is also phenomonal. JDBC for SQL database access is now released as part of the JDK 1.1; the Remote Method Invocation (RPC) and Object Serialization (Persistence) APIs are there as well. An IDL compiler for CORBA/IIOP is under development. Java is quickly becoming an industrial strength technology.