What is Oracle Corp’s NCA Network Computing Architecture vision all about? Could it just be what it refers to as The prevailing internet model. While Oracle bemoans how NCA’s been monumentally misunderstood by practically anyone who’s tried to grasp it, the fact remains that Oracle itself was not able to articulate NCA in such a way until it (quite recently) lost some of its religion over NC network computers. It now concedes that personal computers with web browsers are the predominant form of network computer, moreover that any device with a web browser should be considered an NC. Why has this happened? The Larry Ellison-Scott McNealy vision of Java-based network computers replacing or superseding traditional PCs in application-specific environments has not yet happened in the way they expected. The price of PCs plummeted and many more of them have been linked to the internet which Oracle obviously cannot ignore. So will Oracle’s NCI Network Computing Inc design PCs then? No, NCI – which Oracle claims is profitable – will continue to develop application- specific devices such as interactive set-top boxes. The release of Oracle Applications 11.0 suite later this month will, it hopes, extend the NCA to the breadth of its product offerings and put NCA directly into the hand of many more end users.
