Just five of Oracle Corp’s 15 original network computer (NC) manufacturing partners, plus two others, announced pricing and availability details of their devices yesterday, and one of those, the Idea Client Station has been on the market for a few months already. All the machines are based on Advanced RISC Machines Ltd’s ARM RISC processor. The Intel-based NC was a no- show yesterday. The company was demonstrating the device last night but deferred formal announcement for a few weeks. Oracle’s original partner, Acorn Computer Group Plc is already shipping the Acorn network computer in Europe, but had four new devices on show at Oracle Open World yesterday. They were the Office, ExecPhone, Set-Top-Box NC and the NC TV, though there’s no word on when these might appear, or on pricing. Akai Electric Co Ltd’s Akai Digital unit will ship its Akai Internet Connection network computer in the first quarter of next year for $350, aimed at home users. Funai Electric Co Ltd’s Janesa device will ship next month for less than $500. Uniden Corp could only say that it’s wireless NC will ship sometime next year, and there’s no price. Perhaps the most interesting device comes from one of the newest supporters of Oracle’s Network Computing Architecture (CI No 3,010); Thomson Consumer Electronics will produce a set-top Internet access device for standard televisions. It will start selling the box under the RCA brand name next Spring for around $300, and Thomson Multimedia will introduce a similar device in Europe with Thomson branding. Thomson said it’s got plans for other NC devices under the ProScan and GE names. NetChannel Inc, the television-based Internet content provider, will provide a subscription-based service for the RCA products. The other newcomer is Proton Industrial Electronic Co Ltd, which will ship its Xavier television set-top box NC in the Spring of 1997. Meantime, Oracle’s Network Computer Inc subsidiary has licensed Bitstream Inc’s Bitstream TrueDoc Character Shape Player to incorporate into its NC operating system, as well as fonts for various languages from Bitstream and Dynalab.
