Acorn Announces Immediate Availability of Acorn NC

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- At Oracle OpenWorld '96, The Acorn Computer Group of Cambridge, England today announced that the Acorn NC has been coming off the production lines since August, ahead of schedule. These devices have been made available to organizations who are developing their NC strategies. For corporations ordering in volume, the Acorn NC can be priced below U.S. $400.

Acorn is the main development partner to Network Computer, Inc. (NCI) and has created Reference Designs for NCs that are being offered worldwide by NCI. Acorn is taking these designs through to production to prove the designs and enable early adopters the opportunity to try out the NC concept. This seeding process is designed to promote the market for NCs and pave the way for volume opportunities to be tackled by the licensees of NCI.

In England, Acorn has contracted with D2D, a division of Fujitsu/ICL to manufacture the Acorn NC. Several partners in the telecom and cable market are currently evaluating the device for integration into their network infrastructures. Other customers are using the devices to prepare their Internet services for a new wave of users, while others are evaluating opportunities in hotel, entertainment and corporate intranet markets.

The Acorn NC will not be distributed directly through retailers. However, Acorn is working with a number of network operators who are interested in the future roll out of volumes of NCs to their user base.

About the Acorn NC

    The Acorn NC is based on the Network Computer Inc. reference design.   The device utilizes the ARM7500FE, a fully integrated RISC processor, video and I/O controller offering much of the functionality of a network computer on a single chip.  The device offers a built-in network interface supporting 33.6kb modem, Ethernet, ISDN or ATM25. Its operating system and software are embedded in ROM to allow Web-browsing, email, word processing and other applications to be performed quickly and easily even though it has neither hard disk nor large
amounts of RAM.   The Acorn NC includes NC SmartCard support, and comes with either a TV-style remote control handset, or a wired keyboard and mouse.

Acorn Offers Range of NC Devices

Acorn is able to produce individually tailored designs of the NC concept for corporations with specialized needs. Examples of such custom NC devices are being shown by Acorn at Oracle OpenWorld. These include the Office NC, Set-Top Box NC, ExecPhone NC and NC TV.

Acorn Computer Group plc is one of the leading groups of high technology innovators and suppliers in the world. Within the group Acorn has expertise in the development and marketing of advanced technology products, services and

licenses which exploit the emerging standards in interactive multimedia, from Internet to broadband digital iTV.

Acorn's home page on the World Wide Web can be accessed at http://www.acorn.co.uk/.

NOTE: Acorn is a trademark of Acorn Computer Group plc. All other brand names mentioned are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders, and are hereby acknowledged.

SOURCE Acorn Computer Group

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/CONTACT: Kevin Coleman of Acorn Computer Group plc, 01223 725 005, or [e-mail]; or Julie Plimpton or Tim Dyson of Text 100, 206-443-8004, or [e-mail], for Acorn/

CO: Acorn Computer Group ST: IN: CPR SU: PDT 

KW-GZ -- SFTU002 -- 4140 11/05/96 09:02 EST http://www.prnewswire.com