NETWORK MODELS MAY HERALD FUTURE.

Byline: Steve Lohr The New York Times

The so-called network computer is an unproven product chasing a market that does not yet exist. But the concept of the network computer, promoted as a low-cost alternative to the personal computer, is already stirring waves of interest in corporate America.

Last week, Sun Microsystems Inc. introduced its Javastation model, joining IBM, Oracle and a few other companies that are just beginning to market these stripped-down computers. The no-frills desktop machines typically sell for less than $1,000, including a computer keyboard and monitor.

The network computer is appealing both economically and as a management tool. It promises to reduce the costs of equipping workers with computers and it also promises to give companies more control of how their workers use information technology.

Emphasize the cost reduction, and the network computer is simply bringing the benefits of modern technology to a larger audience, almost as Henry Ford did with the Model T. Emphasize the opportunities for information control and the network computer can be seen as a potential tool of tyranny, as if plucked from George Orwell's novel ``1984.''

``The line between these network computers being used as really effective corporate tools and being used as mind-control tiger cages is a fine one,'' said Paul Saffo, a director of the Institute for the Future, a research firm in Menlo Park, Calif., which advises companies on technology trends. ``There will be a real temptation for corporate managers to go too far in the direction of control.''

It is only prudent to be skeptical about how a technology innovation like the network computer will be used, according to Shoshana Zuboff, a professor at the Harvard Business School, who is a social psychologist. Zuboff is the author of a landmark book on technology and work patterns, ``In the Age of the Smart Machine,'' published in 1988.

In that book, Zuboff asserted that computer-based information technology held out the possibility of transforming the nature of work, breaking down old hierarchies as information and power were shared widely within corporations.

Since then, Zuboff has continued with her detailed case studies of how information technology is employed. She is working on a new book on the subject, and she has become increasingly pessimistic.

``The paradise of shared knowledge and a more egalitarian working environment just isn't happening,'' she said. ``Knowledge isn't really shared because management doesn't want to share authority and power.''

In many ways, the network computer seems to be a manager's dream. It is a closed box, no slots for inserting floppy disks or CD-ROMs. The messy, often costly, individualism of the personal computer environment can be jettisoned for greater efficiency.

No more workers installing their favorite software on an office PC. Sure, some of it may be harmless, but corporate managers recognize that that kind of openness also means vulnerability to computer viruses, hackers and high-tech thieves.

With a network computer, employees can send e-mail, write memos, schedule meetings and even browse the Web. But access to those technology resources is rationed by the managers who control the corporate computer network. For any company so inclined, it would be easy to prevent employees from tapping into Web sites that distribute information not deemed work related, from sports scores and soft porn to news and political commentary.

That kind of central control has its appeal, and it is part of the sales pitch for the network computer. Scott McNealy, the chairman of Sun Microsystems, contrasts the efficient purity of the work setting with the world of the personal computer, which he characterizes as a chaotic, costly haven for time wasters.

To give a worker a personal computer, he says, is to invite trouble. ``What's a floppy disk?'' McNealy asked rhetorically. ``It's a way to steal company secrets.''

Personal computers, he added, are loaded with unnecessary frills that become distractions from real work as employees spend countless hours fiddling with the fonts, typefaces and other fancy features in today's multi-megabyte software.

At Sun, McNealy went so far as to ban one or two popular personal computer programs earlier this year. There may have been some initial grumbling, but McNealy explained: ``I'm sorry, but who owns the computer? At my company, that's not up for debate.''

To personal computer zealots, McNealy's comments are heresy, an authoritarian throwback to the bygone era of the mainframe, the high tide of centralized control in computing. The PC purists regard the personal computer as not just a product but also a movement, an instrument for advancing individual freedom and empowerment.

The personal computer has many fans among the 200 million or so people worldwide who use one. Its foremost fan has been known to run his lucrative fief in Redmond, Wash., with an autocratic hand on occasion, but he is eloquent in his defense of the empowering nature of the personal computer and of the rights of the modern knowledge worker.

``The key question is do you want to take away the individual flexibility and freedom that the personal computer provides,'' said Bill Gates, the chairman and co-founder of Microsoft Corp.

Gates accuses the champions of the network computer, led by McNealy and Larry Ellison of Oracle, of trying to portray ``PCs as evil'' as a marketing gimmick in an effort to sell their own products.

The campaign against PCs espouses what he calls ``grinch management,'' a short-sighted effort to take tools away from workers and control their behavior.

``People do play computer games at work, but they also doodle with pencils,'' Gates said. ``Do you take away their pencils?

``And the notion of telling workers they can go to this Web site but not that one is silly. That's not the way a modern work force is managed. You've got to trust people.''

Still, even Gates concedes that his industry must make progress in reducing the expense of owning personal computers by making them easier to use and run in corporate networks.