Ernest:
Until very recently, I also thought the NC was a bunch of crap hype. After all, who wants a limited function device taking up space when a PC can handle it all ?
Bit if and when communications speeds become much faster and relatively inexpensive, NCs make a tremendous amount of sense, and I think we will start to see decent speeds in 1997 and widespread, very good speeds by 2000.
If a relatively inexpensive device has a Java processor, a moderate amount of permanent storage (hard disk) for caching, and access to fast communications speeds (at least 1 megabit per second), and wireless at that, then mobile employees will be able to use their mobile devices in exactly the same way they use their office PCs, and home users will have access to tons of applications.
Now, it is less clear to me how Oracle will benefit from this (I guess the servers use their database technology).
The real beneficiary would appear to be Sun.
I think the primary reason Oracle has been spearheading the NC is because they know that unless there is a massive paradigm shift, Microsoft will ALWAYS dominate. Oracle will never bypass Microsoft under the "current rules", and this makes Larry Ellison ill. Quite frankly, I think he would be satisfied to see anyone beat Microsoft, even if it is not Oracle. (By the way, I also feel that way, but I don't have responsibilities to shareholders.)
Doug |
