In the late nineties Oracle and Sun Microsystems created the Network computer initiative. Otherwise known as the thin client, it was an attempt to create a “personal computer” that got the whole computing environment from the network. The premise was that the diskless workstation booted from an image from the network and hence did not need extensive computing resources at the workstation (unlike a Windows PC). Aside from Citrix, it was not successful however:
The presentation exposed a secret plan to store “100% of User Data”: “With infinite storage, we can house all user files, including: emails, web history, pictures, bookmarks, etc and make it accessible from anywhere (any device, any platform, etc)”, it read, before matter-of-fact-ly pointing out that this sort of thing was already part of company projects known as GDrive, GDS, and Lighthouse.
Could the GDrive be the next Net Station ?
