Apple last month joined a group of industry leaders in sponsoring the Network Computer Reference Profile 1, a specification for low-cost devices that can access the Internet.
The partners, including IBM Corp., Netscape Communications Corp., Oracle Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc., said the final specification is expected by August.
Joining an increasingly competitive new product category, the Network Computer (NC) profile will not mandate a particular hardware platform. Instead, the standard will provide a minimal set of capabilities and supported protocols.
According to CEO Gilbert Amelio, Apple's first NC, due to ship this year, will be a version of its Pippin. "It will be kind of a Pippin Plus," he said. In 1997 Apple will follow up with NC devices based on the Mac OS, Newton and future technologies, Amelio said.
In addition, Bandai Digital Entertainment Corp. of La Mirada, Calif., last month unveiled the Pippin @World, which meets nearly all the NC specifications and will likely carry the NC moniker when it ships in September, the company said.
Fall release dates should give Apple and Bandai an edge in this category; IBM of Armonk, N.Y., said it will ship NC devices before the end of the year and is currently testing several prototypes based on the PowerPC processor, but none of the other manufacturers supporting the NC specification have set 1996 U.S. delivery dates.
All NC devices must support a variety of Internet and networking standards, including HTTP (Hypertext Transport Protocol), FTP and SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol). Security and network startup protocols are also listed in the specification but are not required.
In addition to the companies above, more than 30 others endorsed the guidelines, including Adobe Systems Inc., Corel Corp., Digital Equipment Corp., Macromedia Inc., MasterCard Corp., Motorola Inc., NEC Corp. and Visa International Inc.
