THE age of the personal computer may be drawing to a close, and in its place a rising star of information technology is making its debut: the network computer, or NC.

Sun Microsystems, the US computer maker specialising in on-line products this week unveiled its NC, the "JavaStation". Computer giant IBM has already announced a similar product and others were poised to follow suit.

Like IBM's "Network Station," the new Sun computer consists of a small box roughly the size of a laptop and housing ports for connection of a video monitor, a keyboard and a mouse.

At first glance, the new breed of computers more or less resemble the standard personal computer used in homes and offices.

But there is a crucial difference, and its implications could transform the computer industry as well as the way consumers around the world receive, use and communicate information electronically.

To reduce costs to a minimum, the new NCs are radically stripped down - most will not contain a hard disc or floppy disc readers - and must be connected to an on-line network - the Internet, or another - to function.

In the United States, the price for a low-end computer is around $1,500, not including a monitor. Sun says it plans to sell its JavaStation for about half that, starting in December.

And Oracle, a leader in software for data banks also set to announce its own NC product, is talking about pricing in the $500 to $700 range.

Manufacturers say that the new NCs will benefit not only consumers, because of their lower prices, but also businesses, which will no longer have to pay the costs of upgrading computer software and hardware.

According to various studies, maintenance costs for a single PC used in a business have now risen to between $8,000 and $13,000 per year. That compares to about $2,500 in annual upkeep for an NC.