Corel Corp. is in the process of developing a notebook NC based on a standard OEM notebook design, Corel CEO and President Michael Cowpland said last week.

The notebook NC will use a StrongARM processor developed by Digital Equipment Corp. and Advanced RISC Machines, and is slated to ship in November at prices ranging between $2,000 and $2,500, Cowpland said.

The unit will run a hybrid operating system that is based on the Java Virtual Machine and Microware Systems Corp.'s OS-9 embedded operating system, as well as a graphics layer developed by Corel. It will support both Java and Windows, he said.

Corel may expand the product into a family of NC notebooks. However, the company plans to spin off its hardware division in the future. As a result, Cowpland said he was not clear on how much focus Corel will give the product.

Corel will also ship in August or September its Corel Video NC thin-client desktops which will be available with 32MB of RAM, and feature videoconferencing capabilities, Ethernet and possibly built-in 25M-bps asynchronous transfer mode technology.

Corel officials have said the Video NC will be 9 inches long and 5 inches wide, and will be based on Motorola Inc.'s MPC 821 chip set. The Video NC will feature a speaker mounted on the top right-hand corner of the machine, and will offer a one-button "deep sleep" mode option for when it is not in use, officials said.

Corel will partner with system integrators to offer full solutions with Corel NCs, Cowpland said.