Archive | June 27, 2005

New, Fast Sun Ultra 20 Workstation Joins New Sun Ultra 3 Mobile Workstation; Complete, Powerful Systems Bring New Affordable Choices to Custome

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW), founder and lead advocate for Java technology, today announced the industry’s fastest x64 (x86, 64-bit) workstation to date, along with a breakthrough concept, making it radically more affordable for developers and customers. For a promotional price of $29.95(USD) per month for a three-year subscription, Sun delivers a Sun Ultra 20 Workstation powered with the AMD Opteron processor equipped with the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS), Sun Java Studio Enterprise 7 software and Sun Java Studio Creator 2004Q2 developer tools on one platform, including full access to world-class support and service.

Sun also announced that the new Sun Ultra 3 Mobile Workstation is based on the UltraSPARC(R) processor and enables SPARC binary-compatibility for mobile computing.

Power for demanding science and engineering

Based on recent OCUS benchmark results with PTC’s Pro/ENGINEER Wildfire application, the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation delivered superior performance and price/performance compared to the nearest HP, IBM and Dell workstations(1). For more information on this and other world-record benchmarks, go to: http://www.sun.com/ultra20/benchmarks.html

“The 64-bit capability of Pro/ENGINEER is enabling our customers to tackle design challenges that were previously considered impractical,” said Michael Campbell, vice president, product management, PTC., a Sun Independent Software Vendor that develops and supports MCAD and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions. “As a result, we are seeing an increase in demand for 64-bit Pro/ENGINEER running on low cost, high-performance 64-bit platforms, like the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation.”

The Sun Ultra 20 Workstation, equipped with the AMD Opteron processor 100 Series, has achieved a new world-record benchmark with SciMark, a Java technology-based benchmark for scientific and numerical computing(2).

“Sun’s new Ultra 20 Workstation provides customers the flexibility of running both 32- and 64-bit compute-intensive EDA applications,” said Rich Monahan, director, IT Engineering Services, Mentor Graphics, a leading EDA Independent Software Vendor. “We expect customers to find that the Ultra 20 Workstation delivers outstanding performance in their design environment while allowing them to maximize their hardware investments.”

Subscription or traditional pricing

Sun is offering a new Sun Services Subscription program, a promotional $29.95(USD) monthly subscription that requires a minimum commitment of three years and which can be renewed. The subscription model makes gaining access to Sun’s leading workstations easy to afford, and easy to own with complete service and support.

The Sun Ultra Workstations are also available with traditional pricing models, with the Ultra 20 priced at $895(USD) without support services. The entry-level configuration includes one AMD Opteron Processor Model 144, 512MB of DDR-400 memory, one 80GB Serial ATA Hard Disk Drive, ATI Entry 2D Graphics, one DVD-ROM optical drive, and is pre-loaded with thousands of dollars worth of award-winning developer tools on one platform. Sun is scheduled to announce the availability of Sun Ultra 20 Workstations with Dual-core AMD Opteron processors later this year. Entry-level pricing for the Sun Ultra 3 Mobile Workstation begins at $3,400 (USD). It is pre-loaded with the Solaris 10 OS, includes 550MHz, 512MB RAM, 40GB disk drive, entry 2D graphics, and wireless 802.11b, and will be generally available in July 2005.

“Sun continues to deliver workstations and promotional programs that developers demand, offering new Sun Ultra Workstations that have achieved numerous world-record price/performance benchmarks,” said Lisa Sieker, vice president of marketing, Network Systems Group, Sun Microsystems. “Our workstation install base is growing, as we offer the fastest x64 (x86, 64-bit) workstations on the planet, which are pre-loaded with the Solaris OS. The new Sun Ultra Workstations are 32-/64-bit compatible and have the capability of running multiple operating systems, including the Solaris OS, Linux and Windows.”

Sun announced several other innovative programs to drive customer adoption quickly with the Ultra 20 ‘Try and Buy’ program that enables customers to try the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation for 90 days at no charge, with an option to purchase the system at the end of the program. The ‘Try and Buy’ program is available now until August 31, 2005.

The Sun Ultra 3 Mobile Workstation extends Sun’s SPARC processor-based systems portfolio into mobile computing, enabling software developers, government agencies and system administrators to run the same applications across enterprise servers, midrange servers, workstations, thin clients, and now mobile workstations.

“Sun continues to push the envelope with its new Sun Ultra Workstations, demonstrating that they are delivering on customer demand and leading the industry’s progression toward 64-bit computing,” said Sarang Ghatpande, vice president and senior analyst, Ideas International. “The leading performance of these new machines and their unparalleled flexibility allow them to be deployed in virtually any IT environment and serve as the backbone for designing and delivering on mission-critical projects. These new workstations can deliver on all counts, providing software developers and designers with solutions that reduce TCO while improving on key workstation features, such as computing power and memory.”

More information on the Sun Ultra Workstations can be found at: http://www.sun.com/workstations.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

A singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer” — guides Sun in the development of technologies that power the world’s most important markets. Sun’s philosophy of sharing innovation and building communities is at the forefront of the next wave of computing: the Participation Age. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the 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. AMD, Opteron, the AMD logo, the AMD Opteron logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices.

(1) As of 06/27/05, the Sun Ultra 20 Workstation is 11 percent faster and 34 percent better in price/performance than the H-P XW9300; 30 percent faster and 12 percent better in price/performance than the DELL Precision 380; 25 percent faster and 53 percent better in p/p than the IBM IntelliStation. Pro/E Wildfire is a registered trademark of Parametric Technology Corporation. Olaf Corten is the proprietor and developer of the OCUS Benchmark. Results are published at http://www.proesite.com. Pricing obtained from each hardware vendor website as of 6/21/05.
(2) SciMark 2.0, results as of 6/27/05, see http://math.nist.gov/scimark2/index.html.

Fujitsu Microelectronics America, Inc. (FMA), a leading provider of robust wireline and wireless solutions that enhance the performance of next-generation communications networks in North America, and MiTAC Technology Corporation (MTC), a leader in the electronics original design manufacturing industry, today announced that MiTAC will use the Fujitsu WiMAX System-on-Chip (SoC) to develop and manufacture MiTAC’s WiMAX Customer Premise Equipment (CPE). Fujitsu has shipped its WiMAX SoCs, the MB87M3400, to MiTAC to incorporate them into MiTAC’s CPEs.

The Fujitsu MB87M3400 uses an OFDM 256 (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) PHY that supports all the available channel bandwidths from 1.75MHz to 20MHz, and can operate in TDD or FDD mode. A programmable frequency selection function generates the sample clock for any desirable bandwidth. When implementing the 64QAM modulation in a 20MHz channel and using all 192 sub-carriers, the SoC’s data rate can potentially go up to 75Mbps. Uplink sub-channelization is also supported.

The Fujitsu WiMAX SoC incorporates sophisticated processing power, including a powerful main RISC engine that implements the 802.16 upper-layer MAC functions, scheduler, drivers, protocol stacks, and user application software. A secondary RISC/DSP functions as a co-processor, which executes the lower-layer MAC functions, offloading processing from the upper-layer MAC and enhancing the total SoC performance. A multi-channel DMA controller handles high-speed transactions among agents on a high-performance bus. (See related Press Releases dated April 21, 2005.)

“Fujitsu is a recognized leader in wireless communication, and this WiMAX SoC is the industry’s most integrated, modular and cost-efficient solution,” said Joseph Huang, general manager of MiTAC USA (L.A). “We will use the Fujitsu WiMAX SoC and customize the WiMAX solution by adding the features required to meet various market needs.”

“MiTAC is a world leader in the electronics manufacturing industry, having strong design and cost-efficient manufacturing capabilities. We are confident that MiTAC’s efficiency and expertise will bring the cost down to make WiMAX CPEs more affordable and available,” said Keith Horn, senior vice president of Fujitsu Microelectronics America. “Our collaboration with MiTAC will help produce products that fully utilize the performance-driven Fujitsu WiMAX SoC.”

About MiTAC Technology Corporation

MiTAC Technology Corporation (MTC) of Taipei, Taiwan has been well recognized as a premier ODM manufacturer of consumer notebooks and rugged notebook for military purposes since 1989. With its rapid business growth, the company was listed in Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE: 3005) in 2002, and has diversified into new areas, particularly the digital home entertainment and wireless communication. With over 60% of the staff committed to research and development, the company is dedicated to striving for innovative technologies. Its wireless communication also aims to provide customers the most cost-efficient total wireless solution, such as WiMAX-compliant CPEs. For more product information, please send emails to wimax@mitac-mtc.com.tw or visit our company website at http://www.mitac-mtc.com.tw for more general information.

About Fujitsu Microelectronics America, Inc.

Fujitsu Microelectronics America, Inc. (FMA) leads the industry in innovation. FMA provides high-quality, reliable semiconductor products and services for the networking, communications, automotive, security and other markets throughout North and South America. As a founding and board member of the WiMAX Forum™, Fujitsu supports the standards development and compliance programs that are essential to successful Broadband Wireless deployment. Fujitsu provides performance-driven WiMAX solutions by leveraging the company’s experience and expertise in the networking and communications markets. Fujitsu offers flexible WiMAX SoC and reference designs for WiMAX-certifiable systems to equipment vendors. For more product information, please visit the company’s web site at http://us.fujitsu.com/micro/WiMAX or please address e-mail to inquiry.bwa@fma.fujitsu.com

Press Contacts

Dinesh Daswani
MiTAC Wi-LAN Inc.
Tel: (403) 207-6329
E-mail:kwetherell@wi-lan.com

Mark Shapiro
Davis-Marrin Communications
Tel: (858) 573-0736
E-mail:mshapiro@davismarrin.com

Emi Igarashi
Fujitsu Microelectronics America, Inc.
Tel: 408-737-5647
E-mail:eigarash@fma.fujitsu.com

Dick Davies
IPRA
Tel: 415-777-4161
E-mail:ipra@mindspring.com

All company/product names mentioned may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders and are used for identification purpose only.

New Features Reduce Development Complexity and Increase Productivity for Developers

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW), founder and lead advocate for Java technology, today announced the availability of new features in the next edition of its popular Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE), Java EE 5. With these additions, Java EE 5 will bring ease of development and increased productivity for the Java community.

“With more than three million downloads and 26 Java compatible application server vendors, Java EE is the cornerstone of enterprise and web-based computing,” said Joe Keller, vice president of marketing, Applications and Developer Platforms, Sun Microsystems. “By listening to developers and building on Sun’s history of innovation in the Java platform, today we’re delivering the features that will facilitate the development of portable, robust, scalable enterprise applications.”

Key features in Java EE 5 will include:

• Making the growing power and robustness of Java EE more readily accessible through ease of development features such as annotations, simplified common coding scenarios, streamlined deployment and new utility classes and helpers;
• Eagerly anticipated new APIs and services such as a JSP standard tag library, StAX, Web Services Metadata, JAXB, easy web applications with JavaServer Faces, Common Annotations and a new persistence API;
• Significant enhancements to existing interfaces offering simplified and expanded web services support, greatly simplified EJB development, extended management and deployment and updated JavaServer Pages;
• Coordinated efforts across new and existing APIs to further advance the Java EE platform as the preeminent environment for building and deploying Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs).

Additionally, Sun has open sourced the Sun Java System Application Server Platform Edition 9.0 (AS PE 9.0), based on the Java EE 5 reference implementation and included within the Solaris 10 platform. Available on java.net, this is the next step in Sun’s strategy to provide broader community participation in Java technology development and to empower customers with a low-cost, high-value business computing platform.

By opening up the source code for the Sun Java System AS PE 9.0 and making the latest builds available on a nightly basis, Sun will streamline the evolution of a robust, commercial-quality Java EE 5-compatible application server that is packed with new features and functionality. Licensees and users will also continue to enjoy the benefits of write-once-run-anywhere computing inherent in the Java platform, with continued compatibility testing by Sun.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

A singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer” — guides Sun in the development of technologies that power the world’s most important markets. Sun’s philosophy of sharing innovation and building communities is at the forefront of the next wave of computing: the Participation Age. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the 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. AMD, Opteron, the AMD logo, the AMD Opteron logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices.

Ink Deal to Expand Support for IBM Software on Solaris 10

Renewing its commitment to collaboration on the Java platform, IBM and Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW), founder and lead advocate for Java technology, today announced a 10-year extension to their Java technology agreement, designed to provide long-term stability to the almost 4.5 million developers in the worldwide Java community. The two companies also announced plans to deliver IBM middleware support for the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) on SPARC(R), x86 and x64 systems.

Under the Java agreement, which extends to 2016, IBM will continue to license and use Java technologies from Sun, including Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE), Java Platform, Standard Edition (Java SE) and Java Platform, Micro Edition (Java ME) and Java Card throughout its software products, including its middleware and web services portfolios. With this extension, IBM and Sun continue to promote and re-affirm the value and necessity of Java compatibility across platforms and demonstrate that both companies are committed to Java innovation. Sun and IBM will also continue to advance and enhance the development of Java technology through the collaborative Java Community Process (JCP) . In addition, IBM will also expand its role to become a channel partner in delivering Java compatible products for the embedded market to Sun’s Java technology licensees.

“The next wave of economic and social progress will spring from ever-growing communities participating on the web. Open technologies like Java and Solaris lower barriers to network participation and, together, form the world’s most advanced platform for Internet service development and deployment,” said Jonathan Schwartz, president and chief operating officer, Sun Microsystems, Inc. “Today’s agreement with IBM to extend their commitment to Java technology and to port IBM middleware to Solaris 10 for x86 is a major step forward. Now customers can deploy the applications they want on Solaris 10 and share in this vast opportunity.”

“This agreement helps assure that IBM customers can continue to benefit from Java,” said Steve Mills, senior vice president and group executive, IBM Software Group. “In addition, for more than 10 years IBM has set the industry standard with a practice of porting our software to various platforms based on customer demand. We have been supporting Solaris as an operating system for many years. Recently, we have seen an increase in customer interest in running Solaris on Intel/AMD platforms. Based on that interest, we have decided to port our key middleware products to Solaris 10 on Intel/AMD systems.”

IBM Agrees to Port Middleware to Solaris 10

Additionally, in response to customer demand, IBM will broaden support of its DB2, Rational, Tivoli and WebSphere software to include the Solaris 10 OS on x64 AMD Opteron -based platforms. The companies each plan to make dedicated investments in engineering and testing focused on product interoperability, performance optimization and timely delivery. As a result, customers will be able to take advantage of key features of Solaris 10, including Dynamic Tracing, Solaris Containers and Predictive Self Healing on any architecture, while protecting their investment in IBM software. Today’s news also demonstrates IBM and Sun’s ongoing commitment to help customers gain control of data center complexity to improve utilization and help ensure availability of business-critical data, while leveraging the compelling benefits of the Solaris 10 OS on SPARC �, x86 and x64 platforms.

Customers Laud Porting Agreement

Customers from multiple industries have voiced support for IBM applications running on the Solaris 10 OS.

“As a user of both IBM and Sun technologies, Reuters is excited by this announcement. The availability of Tivoli software components across Sun’s entire Solaris product line will allow Reuters to retain the robustness of Solaris on lower-cost platforms while utilizing our existing skills in Solaris and Tivoli so reducing our total cost of ownership,” said Barry Woodward, global head of Infrastructure Development and Networks, Reuters.

“Solaris is a core component of the Philadelphia Stock Exchange infrastructure and we rely on a number of IBM middleware products to run our business,” said Richard Ward, executive director, Technical Services, Philadelphia Stock Exchange. “That Sun and IBM are coming together and porting key applications onto Solaris is a major step forward – one that will allow us to deliver increased value to customers.”

About IBM

IBM is the world’s largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. Drawing on resources from across IBM and key Business Partners, IBM offers a wide range of services, solutions and technologies that enable customers, large and small, to take full advantage of the new era of e-business. For more information about IBM, visit www.ibm.com.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

A singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer” — guides Sun in the development of technologies that power the world’s most important markets. Sun’s philosophy of sharing innovation and building communities is at the forefront of the next wave of computing: the Participation Age. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the Web at http://sun.com.

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris, Java, JavaOne, Java Community Process, JCP, 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 United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. AMD, Opteron, the AMD logo, the AMD Opteron logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices.