Archive | November, 2004

Lead-with-Innovation Strategy Pays Off as Customers Around the World Choose Sun for Everything from Chip Multithreading and Utility Computing to Solaris 10 and Java

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced that in 2004 it rolled out the most innovative systems portfolio in the company’s 20-plus year history. Through its quarterly Network Computing launch cycle, Sun has demonstrated its commitment to delivering customer value through breakthrough Network Computing solutions that address critical business needs like complexity, interoperability, scalability and simplicity. The company’s totally refreshed product and services lineup is already changing industry dynamics and being applauded by customers and partners around the world.

“The breadth of Sun’s lineup today is stronger than at any time in Sun’s history and our competition is sitting up and taking note,” said Jonathan Schwartz, Sun’s president and chief operating officer. “Sun’s unwavering dedication to R&D enables us to supply our customers with technology and innovative pricing models that give them a competitive edge. The future of Network Computing will be driven by those willing to buck the status quo, conquer existing cultural barriers and shift capital away from today’s fixed-cost models and closed systems.”

Schwartz adds: “As bandwidth commoditizes, companies are leveraging the vast economies of scale delivered by outside providers of standards-based ‘Net services such as computing power, applications, and internet infrastructure. Sun’s transparent pricing, coupled with vendor-neutral technology, is providing the roadmap for our customers to get ahead of this trend and be the leaders of tomorrow.”

Over the past year, Sun has introduced hundreds of innovative products and services in its quarterly launch cycle that have helped customers reduce the cost and complexity of doing business over the network:

• The Launch of the Solaris 10 Operating System. With over 600 new innovations including ZFS file storage, Dynamic Tracing (D-Trace), containers and the best UNIX(R) to Linux interoperability, Solaris 10 sets a new benchmark for operating system performance, vendor neutrality and security. Sun also added 140 business software applications for Solaris 10 to the already 12,000 plus available to Solaris users.
• Sun Fire Systems Refresh with UltraSPARC(R) IV and Opteron. Optimized for chip multithreading, Sun’s dual core UltraSPARC IV processor has revamped Sun’s entire UltraSPARC family of systems enabling enterprises to “scale up” to nearly twice the horsepower of previous Sun systems in the same footprint and featuring better price-performance than IBM and HP offerings. This year also saw the introduction of the AMD Opteron processor into Sun Fire systems. Running 32-bit and 64-bit applications, Sun’s Opteron processor-based server is 45 percent faster than comparable systems and runs Solaris, Red Hat Linux, SUSE Linux or Windows operating systems with Microsoft Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) certifications. Sun continued to innovate in blade computing with the new dual processor x86 Sun Fire B200x Blade Server (with Intel Xeon processors) and the N1 Grid Provisioning Server 3.1 Blades Edition. A new Netra 440 server is the industry’s lowest-priced, ruggedized, four-way UltraSPARC server.
• Innovative New Storage Systems. Designed to help mid-market and enterprise customers simplify and improve data management, protection and compliance, Sun’s extensive revamp of its storage systems includes everything from a revolutionary midrange storage system that sets a new standard in scalability and price/performance and a new high-end enterprise storage platform with breakthrough virtualization, replication and data movement capabilities to the Sun StorEdge 5210 NAS device.
• New Subscription Models Make Flexible Computing a Reality. Sun took a lead in Utility Computing with the introduction of subscription-based Sun Preventive Services, Sun Utility Computing for StorEdge Systems, Utility Computing for High-End Grid and a new subscription-based pricing model for Solaris giving customers access to services, storage, software and grids of computing power as easily as buying utility services such as phone, power or water.
• Java Stays Hot as Leading Development Platform in Industry. The Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition 5 (J2SE 5) is the most significant upgrade to the Java platform and programming language since its initial release nearly a decade ago. With its integration into the Solaris 10 operating system and having been made available to other operating systems, Sun Java Enterprise System is the most vendor-neutral development platform in the industry. The Solaris 10 universal support for development tools and Java development platforms capped a year that included the introduction of Sun Java Enterprise System Release 2, Sun Java System RFID Software, and Sun Java Desktop System Release 2 as well as new tools like Sun Java Studio Enterprise, Sun Studio Creator and Sun Studio 8 bringing improved performance and productivity to developers.
• Other announcements included:
  • A new update to Sun Cluster software, Sun’s high availability platform for improved predictability and resilience of business critical applications.
  • The introduction of the Sun N2000 Series Secure Application Switch, a powerful new technology based on Sun’s Nauticus Networks acquisition that delivers the highest performing platform for cross-enterprise application delivery in the industry.
  • The announcement of 20 new Sun Reference Architectures and Solutions including the Solaris optimized data center program that enable customers to gain quicker access to information and improve business intelligence, advance data center efficiency and achieve 70 percent scale out utilization at a fraction of the cost.

For more information on Sun’s 2004 Network Computer events, please visit www.sun.com/news. Sun’s next Network Computing event is slated for early February, 2005.

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 make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris, Sun Fire, N1, StorEdge, Java 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. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively licensed through X/Open Company Ltd.

Solaris 10 Becomes the Industry’s First Operating System to Support High Volume 64-Bit Computing

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) and AMD (NYSE: AMD) today announced that one year into their burgeoning strategic partnership, the companies continue to dramatically change market dynamics. Most recently this was shown with the debut of the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) optimized for AMD64 Technology and enterprise computing at Sun’s quarterly Network Computing ’04 launch. To date, Sun has delivered the most comprehensive AMD processor-based systems family in the industry.

This is the first version of Solaris to support the AMD Opteron processor while running in 64-bit mode, enabling customers to take advantage of the industry’s number one UNIX(R) platform, as well as binary compatibility between 32-bit and 64-bit environments. Solaris 10 is optimized for the performance advantage of AMD64 multi-core technology. In 2005 Sun looks forward to the introduction of dual-core AMD Opteron processors.

In a November 2004 Forrester Research report entitled, “Solaris 10 – Major Value for Sun Customers,” Forrester Vice President Richard Fichera states, “A cornerstone of the announcement is full support for Solaris on x86 architectures, with a focus on support for Sun’s own family of AMD Opteron-based servers . . . benefits to Sun customers are significant. Sun users now have more flexible options for consolidation with containers, the opportunity to easily optimize their applications with DTrace, and the option to jump to a commodity hardware price-performance curve with the AMD-based systems.”

“The results of AMD’s strategic partnership with Sun have exceeded our expectations, as well as those of the industry,” said Dirk Meyer, executive vice president, AMD Computation Products Group. “The combination of Sun’s network computing expertise and the AMD Opteron processor with Direct Connect Architecture has provided customers with unprecedented flexibility and scalability, and taken AMD products into enterprise market segments. It has been an extraordinary year. We expect to set new performance levels next year and positively impact total cost of ownership as we continue to redefine the x86 server and workstation market with a growing AMD64 ecosystem and multi-core technology.”

Sun and AMD: A Winning Combination

With support for Solaris 10, Sun’s AMD Opteron processor-based solutions run the platinum standard for enterprise operating systems including: Solaris 9, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 for 32-bit and 64-bit, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 8 for 64-bit, SUSE Linux 9 Professional for 64-bit, Windows XP, Windows 2003 and Windows 2000 Enterprise Server.

In the year since Sun and AMD joined forces, more than 550 customers in 47 countries have purchased Sun’s AMD Opteron processor-based products including:

• Sun Fire V20z: The dual-processor Sun Fire V20z server delivers high performance, reliability, and scalability in a low-cost, ultra-dense, rack-optimized 1U form factor.
• Sun Fire V40z: The Sun Fire V40z server offers excellent performance and affordable pricing for a four-processor server. Using the HyperTransport Technology, this server provides near-linear scalability and extremely fast throughput for x86 applications.
• Sun Java Workstation W1100z: The single-processor Sun Java Workstation W1100z delivers high-performance computing, workstation-class graphics solutions, high I/O throughput, and the ability to deploy large data sets up to 8 GB in size.
• Sun Java Workstation W2100z: The dual-processor Sun Java Workstation W2100z delivers extreme performance, visualization-class graphics solutions, high I/O throughput, and the ability to deploy large data sets up to 16 GB in size.

These products have set world record benchmarks in a number of categories running the Solaris OS. For details see http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2004-09/sunflash.20040921.6.html.

“We will be using the Sun Java Workstation W2100z on AMD Opteron processors for research on robotics, security, digital mapping and any projects requiring 64-bit computing,” said David Livingston, associate director of computer science research, Carnegie Mellon University. “We believe the Sun Java Workstation W2100z is extremely versatile. Its single architecture will enable us to support simultaneous 32-bit and 64-bit computing with no compromises in performance. It will allow us to maintain our existing x86 infrastructure while enabling a smooth migration to next-generation 64-bit operating systems and applications when required. We look forward to continued innovation from Sun and AMD.”

Other customers who are already reaping the benefits from the OS-independent, record breaking speed of Sun’s systems on AMD Opteron processors include: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, University of Aachen (Germany), Conoco-Phillips, University of Queensland, Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory, Old Dominion University and ST Microelectronics, among many other customers.

With more than 700 independent software vendors (ISVs) providing a wide range of applications that are fully optimized and certified to run Solaris on the x86 platform, the Solaris ecosystem is rapidly gaining momentum. Access to Sun’s Software Express for Solaris program is also enabling early previews of the ground-breaking new technologies in Solaris 10 and priming the market for the company’s channel partner communities and customers to leverage Solaris 10 on Sun’s low-cost, high-volume x86 systems.

“We recognized the advantages of the AMD Opteron processor architecture early and have collaborated with our partners at AMD to build optimized systems to deliver value to our customers,” said John Fowler, executive vice president of Sun’s Network Systems Group. “Sun is committed to delivering the best x86 systems for 32- and 64-bit computing and we are in a great position to drive volume. With Sun already offering unparalleled leadership on operating systems and high-performance hardware on AMD Opteron processors, and with the great promise of the forthcoming dual-core processors from AMD, I’m confident we will continue to outpace the competition.”

For more information on the Sun and AMD strategic alliance, please visit: http://www.sun.com/amd

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 make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris, Sun Fire, Java 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 of The Open Group.

AMD, Oracle and SAP Hail Breakthrough Solaris Operating System

More Than 600 Innnovations Announced at NC04Q4 Answer Market Demand For Dramatic Improvements to Utilization, Performance and Security

At its Network Computing ’04Q4 (NC04Q4) launch today, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) launched the much anticipated Solaris 10 Operating System (OS), addressing the enormous waste of resources forced upon customers by technology that fails to provide adequate choice, security, utilization and performance. Other innovations Sun announced as part of its NC04Q4 event, held at the San Jose Technology Museum of Innovation, included advances in services, storage, security and microprocessors. Sun also continued to lead the industry with new business models, revolutionizing the way customers buy and use technologies, with new Solaris pricing and pay-per-use computing offerings and partners.

“Enterprises around the world are carrying an enormous burden in the form of wasted computing resources,” said Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO, Sun Microsystems, Inc. “Solaris 10 removes that burden, ushering in a new era for computing performance and utilization. For the first time, military-grade security is now available in a commercial operating system. And, as we bring unmatched choice of platform, from SPARC(R) to x86 to AMD Opteron, there are two words that set Solaris apart from other operating systems – vendor neutral. At a time when other vendors are signaling their intent to reduce choice and accountability, we stand firm.”

Solaris, the world’s leading commercial operating system, was first launched in 1991. “Applications running then still run perfectly today. Our promise of investment protection through binary compatibility in 1991 holds true today,” said McNealy. At today’s event he also showed a $80 USD billion ‘dividend’ check symbolizing the value of the recovered capital from improved systems utilization that Sun estimates its current Solaris installed revenue base will recognize with the Solaris 10 OS. “We’re willing to extend that same benefit to HP and IBM’s customer base,” added McNealy.

Also on stage at Sun’s NC04Q4 event, Jonathan Schwartz, president and COO at Sun, emphasized how Solaris 10 and Sun’s other major new product innovations address specific customer needs:

• Taking datacenter utilization from 20 percent to 80 percent and beyond – Solaris 10 containers foster the secure and reliable delivery of network services. In another move towards eliminating IT waste, Sun announced its first strategic partnership to broaden the delivery of its secure, pay-for-use grid computing service with TELUS that will resell Sun’s Web-based N1(SM) Grid Computing services starting at $1 USD/CPU/hour.
• Industry-leading performance at industry-beating prices – Solaris 10 includes breakthrough innovations that massively increase datacenter performance. Dynamic Tracing (D-Trace), the industry’s most advanced real-time systems diagnostics tool, reduces costs and increases up-time for network operators. Sun also launched the Sun Secure Application Switch – N2000, a revolutionary new technology that delivers secure, distributed application network computing at breakneck speeds. In addition, the industry’s best-selling 4-way UNIX server, the Sun Fire(TM) V440 gets a performance boost thanks to the fastest UltraSPARC processor available today combined with the Solaris 10 OS.
• Vendor confidence – Military grade security previously only available in Trusted Solaris is now available in Solaris 10, free to all users. Solaris 10 technology takes advantage of new storage offerings designed to help enterprise customers simplify and improve data management, protection and compliance. Solaris 10 offers many new technologies that enhance the overall security for customers including rights management, N1 Grid Containers, cryptographic infrastructure, authentication and access control.

Platform choice – Solaris as a vendor neutral platform. Solaris will run on all the major architectures, SPARC, x86 and AMD Opteron, and on systems from over 270 vendors including Dell, HP and IBM. Sun also announced today that it will deliver the industry’s best UNIX(R)-to-Linux interoperability with the Solaris Linux Application Environment, formerly known as Project Janus. Linux applications will be able to run unmodified on Solaris 10.

At the launch, dozens of industry leaders expressed their support for Solaris 10 and Sun’s product innovations and strategy.

“The enhancements in Solaris 10 further expand the opportunity to combine Oracle’s grid technology with a high-performance Solaris platform,” said Bronwyn Hastings, vice president, Global Alliances and Channels, Oracle. “The combination of Oracle Database 10g and Solaris 10 provides our joint customers the powerful world class offerings that they have come to expect from us.”

“The Solaris 10 launch is not only a significant milestone for Sun, it is also the result of our strong development partnership to expand the AMD64 ecosystem and fulfill the needs of the enterprise,” said Hector Ruiz, AMD chairman, president and chief executive officer. “As the industry shifts toward pervasive 64-bit computing, Solaris 10 will provide the full optimization, flexibility and choice that enterprises need to remain competitive.”

“Subscription-based software is the wave of the future, and we commend Sun’s visionary approach to giving customers more value through innovative business models,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com. “Our relationship with Sun has already yielded tremendous cost savings for our joint customers, and we look forward to working hand in hand with Sun to take full advantage of its latest systems innovations.”

“Sun has demonstrated unparalleled commitment to its channel partners and we’re pleased to see the latest results of Sun’s R&D payout,” said Rich Severa, president of Arrow Electronic’s MOCA Division. “We expect that Solaris 10 will help the channel community increase sales, expand into new markets and deliver powerful solutions for our customers.”

Tune into Sun’s NC04Q4 web event at www.sun.com/nc and visit our online press kit (http://sun.com/presskits/networkcomputing04q4/) to view all press releases and detailed product launch background.

Tune into Sun’s NC04Q4 web event at www.sun.com/nc and visit our online press kit (http://sun.com/presskits/networkcomputing04q4/) to view all press releases and detailed product launch background.

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 make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun Logo, Solaris, Sun Fire, Java 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.

New Sun Fire V440 Sets Price-Performance Record with Fastest UltraSPARC IIIi Processor Running Solaris 10; Sun Previews Solaris 10 Running on New 32-Thread Niagara Processor

At its Network Computing ’04Q4 (NC04Q4) launch today, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) announced that the best selling 4-way UNIX(R) server in the industry, the Sun Fire(TM) V440, just got better thanks to the new 1.6 GHz UltraSPARC(R) IIIi processor running the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS). Additionally, Sun today previewed the radical new Chip Multithreading (CMT) technology used in its Niagara processor design, due to hit the market in 2006, with 32 high-performance threads on a single piece of silicon.

“The key to unlocking the potential of Sun’s new Niagara processor-based systems will be the ability to manage the highly threaded environment using Solaris,” said Kevin Krewell, senior analyst for Microprocessor Report. “Here, Sun has a significant advantage over the open-source Linux operating system. Niagara pushes the envelope of highly threaded yet power efficient server systems.”

“Solaris 10 will dramatically increase the performance of our existing and future UltraSPARC systems,” said David Yen, executive vice president, scalable systems group, Sun Microsystems, Inc. “From the current design of our UltraSPARC IIIi-based systems all the way to the radical architecture of the Niagara processor, Sun is completely rethinking how systems are architected in order to provide the best application throughput in the most dense and lowest power form factor in the industry.”

Solaris 10 Makes UltraSPARC Faster

The industry leading innovation in the Solaris 10 OS will allow Sun’s existing UltraSPARC system customers to dramatically improve server performance without changing their hardware environment. For example, according to internal benchmarks, customers who upgrade to the Solaris 10 OS on their UltraSPARC systems can benefit from a 47 to 73 percent increase in Web Server performance from the Solaris 9 and Solaris 8 OS, respectively.

Additionally, the new features in Solaris 10 have been optimized for UltraSPARC IV and UltraSPARC IIIi-based systems to further increase system speed, efficiency and overall throughput. Starting at under $12,000 (USD), the new Sun Fire V440, running the Solaris 10 OS, is setting the standard for single threaded application performance:

• Sun Fire V440 record breaking price-performance on Solaris 10: Running Solaris 10 and operating at 1.6 GHz, Sun’s best selling UltraSPARC IIIi Sun Fire V440 server achieved world record price-performance among all TPC-H@100GB submissions(2). This is a price/performance improvement of more than 32 percent over the previous V440 submission(3). At $54,276.55 (USD), the Sun Fire V440 server offers the lowest total cost of ownership of any 4-way submission at 100GB by 15 percent. In second place is the 1.28GHz Sun Fire V440 at $67,704 (USD) (3).

Early results are also demonstrating significant performance enhancements for the Solaris 10 OS running on Sun’s dual-core UltraSPARC IV-based systems:

• Sun Fire V490 leads the data warehouse pack with Solaris 10: The 4-way Sun Fire V490 server achieved world record price/performance running Solaris 10 on the 1-TB TPC-H benchmark, demonstrating the highest performance data warehousing and database architecture at this price point. The Sun Fire V490 server delivered 2,958 QphH@1000GB at a price performance of US$52/QphH@1000GB. (1)

(1)The Sun Fire V490 system delivered 2,959 QphH@1000GB at a price performance of 52 US$/QphH @1000GB with a scheduled availability date of 1/16/05.
(2)The Sun Fire 1.593GHz V440 system delivered 2,882 QphH@100GB at a price performance of 19 US$/QphH @100GB with a scheduled general availability date of 11/16/04.
(3)The Sun Fire 1.28GHz V440 system delivered 2428 QphH@100GB at a price performance of 28 US$/QphH @100GB with availability on 11/07/03.
(4) The HP ProLiant DL 760 G2 8P system delivered 4224 QphH@100GB at a price performance of 43 US$/QphH @100GB with a scheduled availability date of 8/15/03.
TPC-H, QphH and $/QphH are trademarks of the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC). Additional information on the TPC-H benchmark can be found at www.tpc.org

Tune into Sun’s NC04Q4 web event at www.sun.com/nc and visit our online press kit (http://sun.com/presskits/networkcomputing04q4/) to view all press releases and detailed product launch background.

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 make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun Logo, Solaris, Sun Fire and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. UNIX is a registered trademark in the United States and other countries, exclusively licensed through X/Open Company, Ltd. 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.

Secure, Low Cost Computing Options for Customers

At its Network Computing ’04Q4 (NC04Q4) launch today, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) and Oracle announced that Oracle(R) Database 10g will be supported on Sun’s Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) for Intel Xeon, AMD Opteron and SPARC(R) processor-based architectures. Additionally, the companies are announcing the general availability of Oracle Database 10g for Solaris 9 OS for x86 systems. These business-critical information technology (IT) platforms deliver additional choice for secure, low cost computing options to a broad range of customers and partners.

“The enhancements in Solaris 10 further expand the opportunity to combine Oracle’s grid technology with a high-performance Solaris platform,” said Bronwyn Hastings, vice president, Global Alliances and Channels, Oracle. “The combination of Oracle Database 10g and Solaris 10 will provide our joint customers the powerful world class offerings that they have come to expect from us.”

“Sun and Oracle continue to build on a strong two-decade long relationship to extend the industry’s #1 UNIX OS and build a direct link between technology solutions and profitability through maximum system uptime,” said Stephen Borcich, vice president partner and industry marketing, Sun Microsystems, Inc. “Today’s announcement emphasizes our complementary strategies in key areas such as enterprise grid computing, security, high-availability and clustering, continue to have a huge impact on the industry.”

Oracle 10g on Solaris x86

Last year Ellison and McNealy outlined the companies’ agreement to provide low-cost offerings to the marketplace and delivering Oracle Database 10g on Solaris OS for x86 is the first major milestone. Early indicators prove that customer demand is high for Sun’s AMD Opteron based systems with more than 1500 software downloads of Oracle 10g for Solaris 9 x86 in just a few weeks.

Oracle and Sun have worked together for 20 years to deliver secure, reliable and scalable enterprise-class datacenters to over 70,000 customers around the world. With a shared commitment to open, standards-based computing, Oracle and Sun deliver optimal performance, innovation and value to the customer through joint engineering efforts, sales and service. For more information about today’s announcements and the Oracle Sun alliance, go to www.sun.com/oracle or www.oracle.com/sun.

About Oracle

Oracle is the world’s largest enterprise software company. For more information about Oracle, visit our Web site at www.oracle.com.

Tune into Sun’s NC04Q4 web event at www.sun.com/nc and visit our online press kit (http://sun.com/presskits/networkcomputing04q4/) to view all press releases and detailed product launch background.

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 make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates.

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris and The Network Is the Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and in 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.

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

New 64-Bit JVM and Universal Support for Solaris 10 Throughout Sun’s Java Development Tools and Platforms

At its Network Computing ’04Q4 (NC04Q4) launch today, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) announced Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) support for the company’s complete line of development tools and Java(TM) technology development platforms, including support for the most recent version of the Java platform, Java 2 Platform Standard Edition (J2SE(TM)) 5.0. These robust tools will enable software developers to immediately capture the outstanding performance gains and capabilities of the Solaris 10 OS today.

The company also announced today the successful collaboration with AMD in developing the industry’s first Java Virtual Machine (JVM) that supports 64-bit systems powered by the AMD Opteron processor with AMD64 technology. The new JVM, which is included free of charge in the Solaris 10 Java Development Kit (JDK), will enable developers to build efficient and high performing Java technology-based applications for Linux, Windows and Solaris environments.

“The Solaris 10 OS is the richest platform for Java system development and deployment, with two of the largest commercial development communities involved, Solaris and Java,” said Jeff Jackson, vice president of Java platform development and tools, Sun Microsystems, Inc. “The Sun Studio compilers unlock incredible performance gains, even for applications written for previous versions of Solaris, and the universal support for the Solaris 10 OS ensures rapid developer adoption and innovation.”

“The release of J2SE 5.0 supporting 64-bit systems based on the AMD Opteron processor means customers now have even more options when running large, sophisticated Java applications,” said Ben Williams, vice president of AMD’s Enterprise and Server/Workstation Business. “The combination of AMD64 technology with Solaris 10 and J2SE 5.0 enables more efficient performance along with price benefits.”

Sun Delivers Robust Tools for Every Class of Programmer

The new Sun Studio 10 development environment makes it simple to get outstanding performance when developing C, C++, and FORTRAN applications for the Solaris 10 OS. The product provides a comprehensive, productive environment for developing scalable 32-bit and 64-bit applications on Sun’s newest UltraSPARC(R), Intel Xeon and AMD Opteron processor-based systems, including AMD64. Sun Studio 10 software consistently improves application performance by up to 60 percent over previous compiler releases and open source alternatives. An enhanced graphical user interface increases ease-of-use, reduces turnaround time for fixes and delivers greater debugging productivity — plus seamless debugging of optimized, parallelized code and mixed languages (C, C++, FORTRAN, and Java).

All of Sun’s developer tools currently run on the beta version of the Solaris 10 OS and Sun is including free trial versions of its entire tools product line with the Solaris 10 OS. Additionally, the popular NetBeans open source integrated development environment (IDE) supports the Solaris 10 OS and enables developers to take advantage of this fully featured, cross-platform IDE for the development of Java applications spanning J2SE, 2-tier Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE(TM)) 1.4, desktop clients, mobile clients and Web applications.

The Sun Java Studio Creator product, which recently added support for the MacOS platform and multi-language support for Japanese and Simplified Chinese, currently runs on the beta version of the Solaris 10 OS. The Java Studio Creator environment has been designed and tested to meet the needs of skilled developers whose primary concern is the rapid turnaround of business-critical applications.

The Sun Java Studio Enterprise 7 product will also support the Solaris 10 OS, with a comprehensive, integrated offering that includes an intuitive, easy-to-use GUI to improve developer productivity. The offering consists of tools, software development kits (SDKs), application programming interfaces (APIs) and libraries and developer services. Java Studio Enterprise also includes a development copy of Java Enterprise System. Using Java Studio Enterprise, developers can rapidly develop applications and Web services across multiple platforms and environments.

“Data center architects and builders are seeking improved productivity and lower total costs through highly optimized application-to-platform performance,” said Dana Gardner, senior analyst, application infrastructure and software platforms, Yankee Group. “The combination of Solaris 10’s runtime optimization and application tuning, on industry competitive 64-bit silicon, with associated tools and the latest Java technology framework provides a tighter feedback loop benefit between design-time and runtime. The result is better upfront application design to and for specific deployment scenarios, which should improve performance, reduce total costs and cuts in application project development times.”

Developer Kits, Programs and Insights for Migrating to Solaris 10

The Sun Developer Network (SDN) offers comprehensive resources for developers migrating applications to the Solaris 10 OS including:

• Solaris 10 Developer Connection, hosted by the Sun Developer Network and located at http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/products/sol10.html features an extensive list of developer guides, software downloads, documentation and forums that address a wide variety of Solaris 10 OS development topics. Sun has also updated the Java Development Kit (JDK) to include the early access version of the J2SE 5.0 JVM for the Solaris OS on 64-bit systems featuring the AMD Opteron processor.
• “Technology Test Drive,” a pre-configured development environment hosted on the web at http://www.sun.com/tech-center, gives x86 developers and IT staff a no-risk free evaluation for seven days to test drive their own code on the most recent versions of the Solaris 10 OS, Sun Studio development environment and other tools for enterprise developers on Sun’s Sun Fire (TM) V20z server with AMD Opteron processors.

Pricing and Availability

Beta version of the 64-bit Java Virtual Machine technology will be included in the new Java Developer Kit for the Solaris 10 OS, which will be available within the next 30 days. Java Studio Enterprise 7 has a list price of $1,895 (USD), or $5 (USD) per employee per month for Java Enterprise System customers and will be available within 30 days. Java Studio Creator is available as part of the SDN subscription program for $99 (USD). Current support for the Solaris 10 OS beta version is available from Solaris Express. Sun Studio 10 will be priced at $2,995 (USD) for a new license or $1,000 USD for an upgrade from a previous version. Discounted pricing is available for multi-RTU (right to use) licenses and University ScholarPacks. Current support for the Solaris 10 OS beta version is available from Solaris Express. Free trial versions of all Sun developer tools will be included with the Solaris 10 OS. For more information on all of Sun’s development tools visit: http://wwws.sun.com/software/javasystem/javastudio/index.html. For more information on the Solaris 10 OS visit: http://www.sun.com/solaris.

Tune into Sun’s NC04Q4 web event at www.sun.com/nc and visit our online press kit (http://sun.com/presskits/networkcomputing04q4/) to view all press releases and detailed product launch background.

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 make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris, Java, J2EE, J2SE, 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.

Multi-Platform, Vendor-Neutral OS With 600 Innovative New Features Dramatically Changes Playing Field; Move to a Services Subscription Model for Revenue

At its Network Computing ’04Q4 (NC04Q4) launch today, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today unveiled the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS). Representing 3,000 engineering years and a $500 USD million-plus R&D investment, Solaris 10 contains more than 600 innovative new features and is the most advanced UNIX(R) operating system ever. Sun plans to make Solaris 10 available for SPARC(R), x86, AMD64 and EM64T systems as a free download by January 31, 2005. Unlike other free distributions which provide only “early access” or “evaluation” free, Sun will provide its commercial grade Solaris 10 product free for deployment. A range of services are available for a fee. Solaris 10 is a vendor-neutral operating system that is supported on more than 270 different hardware platforms from vendors as diverse as Dell, Fujitsu, Fujitsu Siemens Computers, IBM and HP. Sun also unveiled a new advertising campaign and game-changing business model in support of the Solaris 10 launch.

“Operating systems matter now more than ever,” said Jonathan Schwartz, president and chief operating officer, Sun Microsystems, Inc. “Solaris 10 is an industry milestone, bar none. This is the result of Sun’s huge investment in R&D and demonstrates how superior engineering can deliver real customer advantage. With thousands of customers previewing Solaris 10 as part of the Sun Software Express for Solaris program and more than a half million installations of the product so far, Solaris 10 is the most anticipated product release in the history of Sun.”

Designed for modern datacenter workloads, Solaris 10 is the fastest operating system ever released by Sun – more than 40 percent faster than Solaris 9 in web server performance on both SPARC and x86.

Key features include:

“For more than 18 years, SAS has worked closely with Sun to ensure technology compatibility,” said Keith Collins, CTO of SAS. “We are encouraged by the advances Sun is delivering in Solaris 10 and the direction of the company. Our strong, strategic partnership with Sun allows us to work directly with their developers during all stages of development, which means we have not had to make any special changes to SAS for Solaris 10. SAS products are fully optimized and certified to run on the Solaris system making integration of SAS(r)9 and Solaris 10 seamless.”

Sun is backing its product innovations with a new business model that is expected to radically redefine the economics of OS licensing. Beginning early next year, Sun will make Solaris 10 available at no charge to customers – moving away from a fee structure and introducing a service-based pricing model. Similar to phone calling plans, the Solaris subscription plans will vary depending on the level of support and network compute capacity that is included (see related announcement today).

Originally launched in 1991, Solaris has become the #1 UNIX operating system. Nearly all of the global Fortune 1000 run Solaris. A growing base of more than 1000 ISVs with more than 12,000 applications enable it to be deployed from the datacenter to the desktop. Solaris 10 will become Sun’s flagship distribution for current and future system platforms. Schwartz added, “Solaris 10 firmly establishes us far ahead of the competition. We will make this very clear to the market – our development community, ISVs and partners have a unique advantage over HP and IBM.”

Tune into Sun’s NC04Q4 web event at www.sun.com/nc and visit our online press kit (http://sun.com/presskits/networkcomputing04q4/) to view all press releases and detailed product launch background.

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 make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com.

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris, Trusted Solaris, Sun Fire 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.

New Tools Offering Delivers Power of the Sun Java Enterprise System to Wall Street Developers

Continuing on the company’s commitment to the financial services market, Sun Microsystems, Inc., today hosted Sun Tech Days, a 2-day developer conference aimed at delivering the latest development trends, tools and technologies for the financial services developer. Hosted in New York City at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center Center, the event is expected to draw over 500 attendees. During the event, Sun announced new features in the Sun Java Studio Enterprise 7 development environment, and a new tools promotion featuring Java Studio Creator.

“Sun continues its focus to help the financial services industry tackle some of the most complex challenges it has ever faced,” said Stuart Wells, senior vice president, financial services, Sun Microsystems. “Sun has hosted a compelling venue to aid many of the finest software developers hone their Java and Solaris development skills and turn those learnings into real value for their employers.”

Wall Street firms continue to have some of the largest internal IT organizations, often comprised of thousands of developers. These developers require the best tools available to handle the complexity and scale their organizations require. They are constantly looking for new technologies to bring applications to service more quickly. Today Sun answered that call to action with a promotional bundle of an early access version of Java Studio Enterprise 7, the newest version of Sun’s comprehensive software development environment, and the Java Studio Creator product, for $995 (U.S. list price) The offering runs on Windows, Solaris 8, 9, operating systems and on SPARC(r) and x86 platforms. The special promotion is available in limited distribution to attendees at the Tech Days conference program, and will be generally available to the public by mid December.

The Java Studio Enterprise 7 development environment includes features that simplify development collaboration and streamline performance. Application profiling, UML-based modeling, and code-aware collaboration help speed development of applications targeting the runtime version of the Sun Java Enterprise System. It accesses extensive resources from the Sun(sm) Developer Network, as well as many code samples and a complete reference application to help guide development of enterprise applications and Web services.

Java Studio Creator is a highly productive development environment designed to provide easy assembly of business applications from components using a simple drag-and-drop visual interface. It includes a complete version of Sun Java System Application Server 8, Platform Edition, the Java 2 Platform Standard Edition (J2SE) 1.4.2 SDK, and development time drivers for market-leading databases, making developers productive from the start and able to take full advantage of the Enterprise Java platform.

The Sun Developer Network program subscription included with the new promotional bundle provides comprehensive developer resources including code samples, tutorials, reference applications, updates/upgrades and unlimited online technical support.

Another popular Enterprise Developer promotion continues through the end of December 2004 and features a free Sun Java Workstation W1100z along with a three-year subscription to the Solaris 9 OS, support services, and a membership in the Sun Developer Network program. Offered at a discounted price of $1,499 a year (U.S. list price) for three years, details of this offer can be found at http://developers.sun.com/offers/jdworkstationent/index.html.

Sun Tech Days conferences provide professional developers, programmers, web developers, content providers, service providers and system integrators with the technology, training and tools necessary for developing competitive applications for the Internet, intranet and enterprise environments. First established in 1997, these two-day road shows quickly gained popularity and now draw capacity crowds as developers from around the world gather to learn about the most current software concepts available and discuss strategies for creating applications using Sun technologies including Java, Solaris, Java Enteprise System, Java Desktop System, and Sun’s comprehensive developer tools and network.

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 make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris, Java, J2SE, 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.

Further affirming its leadership in high performance computing, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today received two prestigious HPCWire 2004 Editor’s Choice Awards. Sun was awarded first place for Greatest Price Performance in both the Visualization and Storage categories.

“Sun is honored to receive these awards from HPCwire,” said Bjorn Andersson, Director of Marketing for Grid Computing, Sun Microsystems. “Given the publication’s role as a respected authority in the high performance computing community, this recognition attests to the contribution Sun is making in the industry and the value we deliver to our customers.”

“The editors of HPCwire were very enthusiastic in their support of the 2nd Annual Editor’s Choice Awards, and we are honored to present the awards to Sun and the rest of the winning firms for their contributions to the top tier of the computing industry,” said Tom Tabor, Publisher, HPCwire.

Sun’s complete portfolio of high performance and technical computing (HPTC) solutions are well-established in the scientific community and are rapidly making headway in the commercial market for their ability to help companies accelerate time-to-results, design superior products or discover critical information while increasing productivity and reducing costs. Sun’s visualization technologies range from individual workstation-based graphics environments, to server-based collaborative capabilities for workgroup visualization as demonstrated by the Texas Advanced Computing Center’s visual grid for large group collaboration at UT Austin. Customers choosing AMD Opteron™ and Sparc(r) processor-based systems are finding both platforms ideally suited for technical computing needs and that Solaris provides the foundation for production level quality that is needed for core business functions. Sun’s innovative storage solutions help simplify IT environments so organizations of all sizes can increase efficiency and utilization, lower costs, improve reliability and compete more effectively. From the workgroup to the data center, Sun delivers resilient, modular and scalable solutions and services that enable customers to get the most out of their storage resources.

The awards will be formally presented during the Gala Evening at the Supercomputing 2004 Conference in Pittsburgh on November 8, 2004 (Booth #912).

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 make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

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 is a trademark or registered trademark of SPARC International, Inc. 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.

Integrated Offering Based on Sun Fire Servers and Finch Sequencing Center Software Brings Enterprise-Level Data Management Capability to Small Labs

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) and Geospiza today launched a low-cost, integrated DNA sequencing solution for life sciences researchers worldwide. The offering includes Geospiza Finch Sequencing Center software for DNA sequencing data collection, management and analysis, bundled with high-performance Sun Fire servers running Solaris or Linux Operating Systems. The new offering is designed to meet the needs of cost-conscious biotechnology companies and academic core laboratory facilities, allowing them to maximize their research and capital investment dollars with a solution that can cost-effectively increase their productivity and scale smoothly as their sequencing data volumes continue to grow.

The Sun and Geospiza solution links the management of DNA sequencing orders and laboratory workflow with advanced bioinformatics and data visualization tools. This end-to-end capability allows customers to collect, distribute and analyze sequencing data so that they can consistently produce more reliable, meaningful scientific results that can be easily and securely shared with their colleagues worldwide. The offering provides customers an ideal replacement for outdated or custom-built infrastructures that are inadequate to handle rapidly growing sequencing volumes.

“With the increasing amounts of sequencing data produced in the industry, life sciences researchers require a robust, scalable solution that can manage the entire sequencing workflow, from the instrument to results,” said Loralyn Mears, Ph.D., market development manager for global life sciences at Sun Microsystems, Inc. “Sun and partner solutions such as the Geospiza DNA sequencing bundle help customers from the most demanding industries increase efficiency and productivity, while decreasing cost.”

Sun and Geospiza have already demonstrated superior performance of the integrated solution, which surpassed the one million chromatogram benchmark test, a critical threshold measurement of its ability to handle very large quantities of data in processing, managing and analyzing DNA.

“This may be the first time that labs can purchase a bundled solution at about one tenth of the cost that it would take to custom build one in-house,” said Todd M. Smith, Ph.D., chairman and CEO of Geospiza. “With the Sun and Geospiza offering, even the most price sensitive sequencing facilities can cost-effectively increase their productivity while preserving the ability to scale their operations to handle large projects such as ESTs and whole bacterial, plant and animal genomes.”

Pricing and Availability

The Sun and Geospiza offering is available immediately from Geospiza or Sun Microsystems’ authorized resellers. A very cost-effective solution running on the Sun Fire V20z server equipped with AMD Opteron processors starts at a U.S. list price of $13,995 for both hardware and software. Larger, scalable solutions running on the SPARC® processor-based Sun Fire V440 server are also available to meet customers’ growing needs, with a starting U.S. list price of $37,000. More information is available at the following url: www.geospiza.com/sun

The Sun and Geospiza DNA Sequencing bundle is the second in a series of integrated solutions from Sun Microsystems designed specifically for life sciences customers. Earlier this year, Sun released the Sun Fire Starter Cluster for Bioinformatics with a collection of commercial and public software from industry-leading partners. More information is available at the following url: http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/2004-03/sunflash.20040329.1.html

About Geospiza Finch Sequencing Center

Geospiza Finch Sequencing Center leverages web-based forms and enterprise-level IT infrastructure for streamlining the management of sequencing data, scientific analysis and laboratory workflow. Resulting data are automatically checked by the Finch software for quality, then trimmed, vector masked and delivered into a designated secure database scientists can use to review results or share with colleagues and collaborators. The Geospiza family of Finch Applications, including Finch Assembly Manager, Finch BLAST Search Manager, FinchTV, Finch Genotyping Data Manager, Finch Oligo Order Manager and Finch Customer Invoice Manager, greatly extend the core data analysis and business capabilities of Finch Sequencing Center.

About Geospiza

Geospiza combines life sciences and IT expertise to deliver low-cost, high-productivity software systems to research teams and core labs worldwide. Geospiza’s integrated Finch system for DNA sequencing laboratory workflow, data management and analysis turns complex scientific processes into reliable, upgradeable and scalable every-day practices scientists and technicians can use to get their real work done. Geospiza was founded in 1997 and serves more than 10,000 researchers in both established and emerging biotechnology, academic, government and bio-pharmaceutical companies worldwide. More information is available at www.geospiza.com

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 make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, The Network Is The Computer, Sun Fire and Solaris 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.