Archive | 2002

Business pact targets improved anytime-anywhere mobile computing capability of US Department of Defense (DoD) agencies.

Tadpole today announced a business pact with Sun Federal aimed at improving the field computing capability and flexibility of US DoD agencies.

Sun Federal plans to deploy Tadpole’s world-class portable UNIX® solutions to US DoD agencies through the Navy’s Tactical Advanced Computer Joint Workstation (TAC-JW) contract. These US-built solutions include Tadpole’s UltraBookIIe(tm) laptop and transportable VoyagerIIi(tm) server, both of which are built around Sun’s UltraSPARC® and Solaris(tm) technologies.

Like all Tadpole hardware, the UltraBookIIe laptop and VoyagerIIi server pack virtually all of the computing power and punch of Sun desktops and servers. Capable of deployment in a short timeframe, the lightweight mobile solutions are particularly suited to battlefield conditions, and are 100 percent binary compatible with Sun desktops and servers.

Tadpole builds mission-critical systems in support of Joint Command and Control Operations for battlefield management, briefings and collaborations, reconaissance and intelligence gathering. Using Tadpole’s portable solutions, greater compute density can be achieved at lower operational cost. Deployed, the lightweight portables can generate productivity gains, and fast returns on investments.

Thomas Kreidler, president Sun Microsystems Federal, Inc., comments: “Tadpole is a legend and its skillset in taking Sun’s technologies and making them truly portable is incredible. In these challenging times, this alliance can lead to deployed forces having more flexibility and improved computing capability.”

Graham Brown, president of Tadpole’s hardware business unit, adds: “Sun Microsystems and Tadpole have collaborated closely over the past decade to give mission-centric advantage to military forces, and improved business competitivity to Global 2000 enterprises. This alliance fully supports our joint goals and drive to extend Sun’s technologies into all agencies of the Federal government.”

Tadpole Value Over the past 10 years, Tadpole has become a trusted supplier-of-choice and collaborator for enterprise software and e-business application vendors, network service providers and forward military command information centers, helping them to maximize the potential and benefits of Sun Microsystems’ computing technologies, anytime-anywhere. The real-world benefits, increased productivity and lower operating costs associated with its product lines are laid out on Tadpole’s website – visit www.tadpole.com.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer[tm]” — has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to take their businesses to the nth. Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

About Tadpole

Tadpole (LSE: TAD) builds and markets specialized Unix platforms and solutions for compute intensive environments. Built in Carlsbad, California, the company’s hardware include laptops and transportable servers, rack mountable compute servers, and enterprise appliances. Tadpole’s platforms are resource manageable, power saving, space saving, generating an early return on investment. Additionally, Tadpole’s products offer expanded PCI slots, extended memory capacities, expanded I/O capabilities and hot swap disk drives all specially configured to meet individual customer requirements. All Tadpole solutions are best-of-breed and 100 percent Sun SPARC binary compatible. The company is one of Sun’s elite Master Value Added Integrators (MVAIs) that design and manufacture specialized system infrastructure solutions for the Sun server market, and a Sun Regional Systems Provider (RSP). For more information, visit www.tadpole.com, or contact Tadpole by email sales@tadpole.com.

Sun’s Entry Servers Aggressive Pricing, Strong Channel Strategy and Top Performance Appealing to Range of Customers

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced that sales of its UltraSPARC® III-based entry servers are red hot. The Sun Fire]™ V880 has turned out to be the fastest selling server out of the gates for Sun. The Sun Fire 280R, another star in Sun’s volume server line, is the revenue leader within Sun’s hot-selling volume systems line. And Sun continues to bolster the price/performance benefits of its volume systems by slashing up to 28 percent off the price of the popular two-way Sun Fire 280R server.

Sun Fire V880 Entry Server Steps In and Takes Over

The Sun Fire V880 server booked more than 4,500 sales during the first two months following its introduction last October. At that phenomenal rate, Sun’s new entrant to the eight-way server marketplace is posting better sales than any of the leading competitors in that market segment today, according to IDC’s server market report for Q2CY’01, including Compaq, Dell, IBM or HP.

“We fixed our sights on the Wintel market and our customers have told us we nailed the bull’s-eye; they couldn’t wait for our new Sun Fire V880 servers,” said Neil Knox, vice president and general manager of Sun’s Volume Systems Products division. “With this server, we focused our design leadership on the fastest growing segment of the server market, and we’re delivering better price/performance with lower total cost of ownership for our customers. Additionally, with more than half of our sales flowing through channel partners worldwide, their reach and market expertise add tremendous value to our strong product offerings and make our volume strategy a very real threat to the Wintel world.”

The Sun Fire V880’s performance is superior to PC servers on many levels, according to the most recent Unix Server Pricing and Configuration Monitor Update from D.H. Brown Associates, Inc. The report states that the Sun Fire V880 offers four to 16 times the CPU cache and six times the system bandwidth than PC servers. Sun is also cited as offering the least expensive systems in the four-way Unix server market, providing a 40 percent cost savings over IBM. Overall, the report declares Sun the low-cost leader in the Unix server space.

Sun Fire 280R Outperforms Gigahertz Servers at Affordable Price
Bolstering the price/performance benefits of its Sun Fire volume servers, Sun slashed the price on its rack-optimized, dual-processor Sun Fire 280R server by up to 28 percent. Delivering enterprise-class features and availability at entry-level pricing, the Sun Fire 280R server addresses customer needs for mission-critical, network intensive and compute-intensive applications. The server provides level 2 cache, memory and system interconnect capabilities well out of reach of similar Pentium III-based Wintel/Lintel and entry-level servers.

Regarded for its performance and large memory capacity, the Sun Fire 280R server, with 900 MHz UltraSPARC III processors and running the Solaris™ 8 Operating Environment, outperforms competing Compaq and IBM 1.26 GHz Lintel servers by up to 55 percent on Sun’s Web Workload benchmark utilizing Apache web server.

D.H. Brown Associates’ Unix Server Pricing and Configuration Monitor Update confirms that Sun leads the pack in price advantage for one- to two-way Unix servers, with Sun coming in at 40 percent below the average system cost in that category.

The Sun Fire 280R provides the reliability and scalability of the Solaris platform, delivering lower total cost of ownership, reduced complexity and the seamless scalability of Sun’s binary compatible end-to-end product line.

Customers Across the Board Seek Better Performance, Lower TCO

University of Houston

In a deal worth more than $1 million at the University of Houston, researchers have built a large computational cluster–founded on the Solaris[tm] Operating Environment, Sun Grid Engine software and Sun hardware, including 13 Sun Fire V880 servers–to aggregate and manage compute power over several concurrent projects in the development of state-of-the-art environmental modeling and seismic imaging applications.

“UH researchers will utilize the new Sun computational cluster to enhance and deploy a multiscale Air Quality Model that simulates potentially harmful atmospheric conditions and assists in the development of highly accurate identification and quantification of hydrocarbon reserves for oil exploration. This will help improve utilization of national energy reserves,” stated Barbara Chapman, Associate Professor at the University of Houston.

Center for Atmosphere-Ocean Science, New York University

At New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematics, home of the university’s Center for Atmosphere-Ocean Science, a large installation of Sun Fire 280R servers helps researchers perform data-intensive climate modeling.

“Climate modeling is a computationally intensive activity that is amenable to code parallelization techniques, such as domain decomposition,” said David Holland of the Institute. “The 64-bit, high-performance processing capabilities of our Sun systems are essential to providing the robust computing power required for our research. At the Center for Atmosphere-Ocean Science, our 16-node cluster of Sun Fire 280R servers connected by a high-speed network gives us the ability to accurately and quickly develop the data-intensive models used in the study of climate.”

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer[tm]” — has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to take their businesses to the nth. Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun’s Calendar 2001 Unix/ RISC Unit Market Share Grows Ten Percent

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) demonstrated stellar market acceptance in a tough economy by growing UNIX®/RISC unit market share in calendar year 2001 at the expense of major competitors. According to Gartner Dataquest’s Q4 US Server Database Report, Sun remains the number one leader in UNIX/RISC units and revenue by a wide margin. Over the past five years, Sun has grown its market position to a solid number one in UNIX/RISC systems. The company’s focus on systems design and best-of-breed solutions is reflected in its competitive strength.

Maintaining its strong hold on the UNIX server landscape, Sun again holds the number one UNIX/RISC server vendor position in the US, shipping two out of every three systems. With over 34,000 unit shipments in Q4, Sun captures the lion’s share of the market with 68.5 percent, more than double that of its nearest three competitors combined. While the economy continues to put a squeeze on the UNIX/RISC server market in general, Sun demonstrated 13.5 percent sequential quarterly growth in shipments.

Sun ended the 2001 calendar year strong, resulting from the positive momentum generated from its roll out of the highly anticipated 900 MHz UltraSPARC[tm] III Cu processor, the launch of its new line of Sun Fire™ Midframe servers, as well as the debut of its flagship high-end Sun Fire™ 15K server. And rapid acceptance of the new Sun Fire v880 system has resulted in the fastest ramp of any new Sun product.

Customers, many of which are brand new Sun customers, are consistently choosing Sun over competitors for their server consolidation, mainframe rehosting and mission-critical data center needs. Sun’s seamless transition to its new UltraSPARC III based systems is reflected in its sequential quarterly growth leadership position. The new Sun Fire product line — from entry to high-end — brought in over one billion dollars in US revenue for the 2001 calendar year.

“Even in a troubled economy, Sun is undaunted, winning customer after customer in competitive deals worldwide,” said Shahin Khan, chief competitive officer, Sun Microsystems, Inc. “The numbers prove that Sun’s rock solid reliable and massively scalable server line is what the market wants. The need for simplicity, reliability and scalability is driving the demand for UNIX/RISC servers and Sun’s SPARC/Solaris[tm] offering is continuously the platform of choice.”

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision — The Network Is The Computer[tm] — has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to take their businesses to the nth. Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com.

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Sun Fire, Solaris and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd.

Will Ship Linux for New Line of Low-End Systems and Make Aggressive Entry Into Systems Market

In a sweeping move, Sun Microsystems, Inc. expanded its support via a three-prong approach in support of the Linux operating system. First, Sun announced it will ship a full implementation of the Linux operating system. Second, Sun will dramatically expand its line of Sun Cobalt[tm] Linux appliances and will also introduce a new family of low-end general purpose Linux/x86-based systems. And third, it will more aggressively participate in the Linux community by freely offering key components of its Solaris[tm] operating environment software.

“Ultimately, customers need to develop and deploy new services quickly and across their corporate networks, as well as the entire Internet,” said Ed Zander, Sun’s president and chief operating officer. “By adding the Linux community to the hundreds of thousands of Solaris developers, and the nearly 3 million Java[tm]/XML developers, Sun’s customers have unified access to the broadest array of innovation in the industry on which to provide services. Sun remains the best open business opportunity for developers.”

“In addition, we have some of the industry’s most advanced UNIX®, Java™/XML experts now working to advance Linux with the key mission-critical features of the Java platform and Solaris operating environment,” he said. “We will now offer our customers an incredible value proposition by delivering our binary compatible industry leading system family running on the SPARC™ platform and Solaris software system which starts at less than one thousand and goes to nearly ten million dollars, along with our new Sun Linux low-end servers and Sun Cobalt appliances for emerging edge services applications. And with our Sun™ Open Net Environment(Sun ONE), Java- and XML-based software platform, developers can write to one software platform and run their applications or services across a vast array of systems.”

Announced today

1. Sun will ship a full implementation of the Linux operating system.
2. Sun will ship Linux on both its popular Sun Cobalt™ appliances and a new class of low-end single and multiprocessing x86-based servers, which will be announced in the near future.
3. Sun will deliver the entire Sun ONE infrastructure software suite on the Linux platform. This is in addition to the existing Sun software that is already optimized for Linux, including the iPlanet™ Directory and Web Servers, the Java/XML platform, Forte™ for Java[tm] development tools, Project JXTA, StarOffice™ productivity suite, Sun[tm]Chili!Soft ASP and the Sun Grid Engine.
4. Sun is shipping built-in Linux compatibility with Solaris today, enabling it to run Linux applications on any Solaris-based system. In addition, Sun announced a Linux compatibility assurance tool (LinCAT).
5. GNOME, the most advanced Linux user environment, will become the preferred desktop for Solaris when GNOME 2.0 begins shipping later this year.
6. Sun will expand its partnering with the Linux community to provide native support of Linux on SPARC systems for both the telecommunications and embedded markets. Today, companies such as SuSE and Lineo already support Linux native on Sun’s SPARC microprocessors.
7. Sun will support its Linux products with a rich set of support and professional services.
8. Sun will support Linux on its key Sun StorEdge™ line of storage systems and software.
9. Sun will continue to be one of the largest contributors of intellectual property to the Linux and open source communities, and will offer contributions to the Linux kernel. As an example, Sun today released a new tool to the Linux community that aids application developers in assuring compatibility between Linux releases. ABIcheck was ported from Solaris to Linux and released under an open source license. Sun also announced its intention to open source key technologies in its implementation of the forthcoming Liberty Alliance Specification (an alliance to deliver an open standard for federated network identity).

Sun’s First General Purpose Linux Server

Sun will expand the use of Linux beyond its existing Sun Cobalt appliances. It will extend its ‘edge’ server family in order to address the growing demand for low-priced, horizontally scalable servers. Sun is already the world’s leading supplier of Linux-based appliance systems. Its Sun Cobalt line of server appliances starts at less than $1,000 and has an installed base of more than 100,000 units. The company will continue to enhance the Sun Cobalt line of Linux appliances beyond its current eight-inch square “Qube” and 1.75-inch high rack-mountable configurations.

In addition, by mid-year, Sun will disclose details of its new family of general purpose, low-end Linux servers, including single and multiprocessing systems capable of running the thousands of native Linux and Java applications. The systems will be sold through Sun’s direct sales force, by its reseller channel partners and via its online catalog and will be backed by Sun’s service and support organization and consulting practices.

The Sun Cobalt line will be sold along side Sun’s family of Sun Fire™ and Netra™ general purpose servers running the Solaris operating environment on the SPARC platform. These systems continue to offer a high level of RAS and scalability, can run the more than 10,000 Solaris applications and are binary compatible with Sun’s small-to-enterprise class Sun Fire family of servers.

Key Sun Software Now On Linux

A large portion of Sun’s software portfolio already runs on Linux. Sun will now deliver all of its Sun ONE software, as well as many other key software technologies, on the Linux platform. This includes the iPlanet, Java and Forte product portfolios. Other key software includes management and provisioning utilities, peer-to-peer technology and service delivery tools.

Linux Applications on Solaris

Solaris 8 runs Linux applications today. Sun also announced it is delivering built-in Linux compatibility in key programming interfaces, commands and utilities, and user environments. In addition, Sun is delivering LinCAT (Linux Compatibility Assurance Toolkit) to simplify the process of assuring Linux applications will run on its Sun Fire family of servers. Further, Sun announced that Solaris 9, now in early access, will provide even more built-in Linux commands, utilities and interfaces.

Linux on the SPARC Platform

Sun will continue to work with the Linux community to provide Linux running native on systems running the SPARC platform. In the embedded market, Lineo will adapt and support Lineo’s Embedix Linux operating system products to run on UltraSPARC processor-based end user developed custom hardware. Lineo is working to create a full-featured UltraSPARC processor-focused software development kit complete with the Lineo Embedix operating system. Developers will also have free access to a basic version of embedded Linux operating system fine tuned to run on the UltraSPARC processor.

Contributions to Open Source

Sun is already one of the largest providers of intellectual property to the Linux and open source communities. Sun has a 20-year history of participating in collaborative development. Sun today contributes resources and technology to free and open source projects including: OpenOffice.org, GNOME.org, Mozilla.org, Apache.org, NetBeans.org, X.org, WBEMsource Initiative, the University of Michigan NFS version 4 Linux port, the Grid Engine Project and Project JXTA.

Sun will extend its participation by offering key elements of its Solaris Operating Environment. With more than 7,000 architecture and software engineering experts, Sun has pioneered the use of UNIX in enterprise and service provider mission-critical environments. Sun will now apply this expertise to deliver key components of the Solaris operating environment to the Linux community.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer[tm]” — has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW), to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to take their businesses to the nth. With $18.3 billion in annual revenues, Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com.

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Forte, iForce, iPlanet, Java, Netra, Sun Fire, Sun Enterprise, Sun Chili!Soft ASP, Sun Cobalt, Sun Grid, Sun StorEdge, Solaris, StarOffice and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the US and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

LINUX is a trademark of Linus Torvalds.

UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd

Sun Microsystems, Inc. has signed an agreement with Lineo®, Inc. to adapt and support Lineo’s embedded Linux operating system products to run on UltraSPARC® IIe-processor based end user-developed custom hardware. Lineo is working to create a full-featured UltraSPARC IIe processor-focused software development kit complete with the Lineo Embedix® operating system. This kit will be licensed and supported by Lineo. Developers will also have free access to a basic version of embedded Linux operating system fine tuned to run on the UltraSPARC IIe processor.

Susan Kunz, director of marketing for Sun’s Processor Products Group said: “Teaming up with Lineo to support embedded Linux development is an ideal solution for Sun to get a greater share of the embedded systems OEM market. It’s been a long-standing policy of Sun to supplement the SolarisTM Operating Environment with support for specialized, embedded and real-time operating systems. Lineo Embedix Linux is a best of both worlds situation for Sun as it offers the smaller footprint and real-time response of dedicated RTOSes, but also works well with the Solaris Operating Environment. Not only does this make it easy for developers to take on embedded projects but opens up very interesting opportunities for mixed Solaris Operating Environment/embedded Linux system designs.”

Alford Frost, Lineo senior vice president for marketing and business development, said, “The Lineo Embedix platform ensures the SPARC developer community with a familiar Linux API and hard real-time performance. Developers involved with devices from commercial off-the-shelf board-based products, to telco and Internet infrastructure, can now more easily develop and maintain their code base. Sun understands this market better than anybody and has addressed it with the Solaris Operating Environment. Now, the Embedix operating system adds another complete solution for SPARC-based custom OEM applications.”

The Lineo Embedix operating system and tools are carefully designed to ease complete product development and shorten release cycles, giving developers the ability to spend more time on product design. Lineo Embedix is a “100% Pure Linux” and royalty free solution. Embedix provides everything developers have come to expect from Linux combined with an infrastructure to support non-Linux services such as high performance hard real-time, multi-processor (DSPs, 16 bit, 32 bit, and non-heterogeneous architectures) support and native support for Legacy RTOS APIs. Embedix provides a tested, validated, approved, configuration managed software installation developed specifically at the target hardware.

Sun views the addition of embedded Linux as an application development option for end-user developed OEM products as a meeting point between the full featured, Solaris Operating Environment and hard-real-time embedded operating systems. Furthermore, owing to the royalty-free nature of the Linux licensing regime, developers can choose embedded Linux with hard real-time capabilities as a lower-cost alternative to commercial real-time OSes.

Embedded Linux also fits well into Sun’s vision of the evolution of embedded systems. In particular, the company believes that embedded systems such as digital TV, telecommunications switches, routers and other network edge devices will require hybrid systems software that offers some real-time capabilities on satellite/network edge devices mixed with the sophisticated features and standardization inherent in Solaris-based applications running on upstream main servers.

Licensing And Availability

The basic embedded Linux operating system fine tuned by Lineo running on the UltraSPARC IIe processor will be available from the Lineo and Sun websites beginning the first quarter of 2002. Lineo plans to offer the Lineo Embedix SDK with operating system and toolset, customized for the UltraSPARC IIe processor, in the third quarter of 2002. For more information, readers should contact either Lineo at www.lineo.com or Sun at www.sun.com/microelectronics/UltraSPARC-IIe/RTOS

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision–The Network Is The Computertm–has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to take their businesses to the nth. Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://www.sun.com.

About Lineo, Inc.

Lineo®, Inc. provides embedded systems and real-time solutions that cover the full spectrum of embedded development, including operating system software, host development environments and professional services. Lineo distributes vertical solutions that allow OEMs to create smart embedded devices and systems while helping OEMs to reduce system requirements, per-unit costs and time-to-market. Lineo’s key product lines include: Embedix® SDK (a fully featured and integrated embedded developer tool chain), Embedix® (embedded Linux system software for MMU-less and MMU-full processors), Embedix® BridgeWorks™ (operating systems and tools for multiprocessor device support and legacy code migration) and RTXC™ Quadros™ (a highly configurable microprocessor and DSP real-time operating system). Contact Lineo at http://www.lineo.com, via e-mail to info@lineo.com or by calling (801) 426-5001.

# # #

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. SPARC® and UltraSPARC® are registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. UltraSPARC is licensed exclusively to Sun Microsystems, Inc. Products bearing the SPARC trademarks are based on an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Press announcements and other information about Sun Microsystems are available on the Internet via the World Wide Web at http://www.sun.com/ at the URL prompt.

Lineo and Embedix are registered trademarks of Lineo, Inc. BridgeWorks, RTXC and Quadros are trademarks of Lineo, Inc. Linux is a registered trademark owned by Linus Torvalds. All other products, services, companies and publications are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Sun Delivers on Innovation in 2001 with New Server Launches and Software Products

Riding high on a successful year of major server launches, Sun Open Net Environment (Sun ONE) momentum, and processor upgrades, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) is poised to capitalize on its progress during 2001, having been selected by CMP Media’s Intelligent Enterprise magazine as one of its “Companies to Watch” in 2002. Sun also earned four top honors in the magazine’s Readers’ Choice awards beating out IBM for best IT products in Operating Systems with the Solaris™ Operating Environment (OE); the Portal Server Category with the iPlanet[tm] Portal Server software, the High-End Server category with the continually successful Sun Enterprise™ 10000 server, also known as Starfire; in the mid-range with the new Sun Fire™ Midframe server family.

Sun was chosen by the editors of Intelligent Enterprise as an infrastructure company that is well positioned to be a key enabler of the intelligent enterprise in 2002, reflecting the tremendous success of Sun’s heavy push on software and services on demand as part of the Sun ONE initiative, in addition to the roll out of the highly anticipated copper technology UltraSPARC[tm] III Cu processor, the launch of its new line the Sun Fire Midframe servers for the midrange, plus the debut of the Sun Fire 15K high-end server.

The Solaris OE and its recent upgrades also bolstered Sun’s ratings among the readers of Intelligent Enterprise. As the foundation for Sun systems, the Solaris Operating Environment enables IT organizations to deliver on the promise of massive scalability, continuous real-time computing and trusted, secure systems. Recent updates to the Solaris 8 Operating Environment and the planned release of Solaris 9 OE continue to make Solaris the most mature foundation for a networking stack in the industry. Wins for both Solaris and the iPlanet Portal Server validate Sun’s important role in the future delivery of Web services through the Sun ONE initiative. The iPlanet Portal Server will serve as the delivery mechanism for Web services, as well as the point of aggregation and personalization of applications and information.

“We really made the most of 2001, delivering to the marketplace some of the most advanced and innovative technology ever to come out of Sun Microsystems – from key elements of the Sun ONE offering, such as Solaris and the iPlanet Portal Server, to our 900 MHz UltraSPARC III processor, the Sun Fire Midframe, to Sun StorEdge™ 9900 and our new flagship high-end server, the Sun Fire 15K,” said Shahin Khan, Chief Competitive Officer for Sun Microsystems. “These accolades from Intelligent Enterprise and its readers validate the quality of our products and prove that closed, costly and complex systems are not what customers want. Sun is an integral part of helping businesses get where they need to go. We’re on course for another great year and plan to take even more ground from IBM as we roll out more technology in 2002.”

“Our selection process for our distinguished ‘Companies to Watch’ award involved a thorough assessment of the past year’s coverage and reader feedback. More importantly, we based our decision not on just one criteria, such as total revenues or simple name recognition, but on criteria that really matters in today’s business world: technology leadership, customer innovation and satisfaction, and a solution partner that can provide the hardware and software infrastructure needed to power the next wave of computing and services on demand,” said David Stodder, editorial director of Intelligent Enterprise.

Readers Choose Sun for Strategic Value and Real-World Performance

Sun once again ascended to the top of the pack, this time selected by the readers of Intelligent Enterprise as the number one provider of IT products in four categories, including two key components of the Sun ONE stack – the Solaris Operating Environment and the iPlanet Portal Server:

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer]™” — has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that power the Internet and allow companies worldwide to take their businesses to the nth. Sun can be found in more than 170 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Sun Fire, Sun Enterprise, Solaris, iPlanet, Sun Fireplane, StorEdge and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.