Author Archive | SPARC Editor

Solaris 10 To Be Premiere Operating System For AMD Opteron(TM) Processor and Intel-based Systems, Where HP/UX and IBM AIX Don’t Play

Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced the sixth update to the Solaris 9 Operating System (OS) for SPARC and x86 systems, and the availability of next generation Solaris functionality through the next release of Software Express for Solaris. With the Solaris 9 update, customers will benefit from improvements to Solaris volume manager, performance enhancements and additional platform support for the new Sun AMD Opteron(tm) processor and UltraSPARC IV processor-based systems. Additionally, Software Express allows customers to begin early usage of new, innovative enhancements coming to the OS, including N1 grid containers, dynamic tracing (DTrace) and a cryptographic framework with process rights management, which can enable system administrators to achieve higher levels of utilization, performance and tighter controls for system and data security. To date, there have been more than 10,000 downloads of Software Express for Solaris.

“As the only Enterprise-class UNIX available on the x86 platform, Solaris 10 is uniquely positioned as the logical alternative for HP/UX and AIX customers that have been abandoned by their vendors on AMD Opteron processor-based and Intel systems,” said John Loiacono, executive vice president, software, Sun Microsystems, Inc. “Sun is able to help customers ensure a consistent, secure and high quality migration to the x86 platform on AMD Opteron processor-based systems, or expansion and growth on the SPARC platform.”

As Sun prepares to release Solaris 10 later this year – one Solaris for SPARC and x86 platforms – it continues to see growth and increased demand for the Solaris OS on x86 systems. Currently there are more than one half million registered licenses for Solaris 9 x86 and approximately 200 compatible third-party hardware systems, further enabling flexibility and choice for customers. In addition, through Sun’s alliance with AMD, the two companies plan to provide customers with a seamless growth path to 64-bit x86 computing at compelling price points, while enabling 32-bit and 64-bit application co-existence. Customer adoptions are also showing that Solaris x86 is providing the reliability and uptime that customers are looking for.

“As a long distance provider to more than 11,000 customers, bigredwire can offer some of the lowest rates in the country by keeping costs down and managing customer interactions through our Web site – including customer service, billing, services and account maintenance,” said Chris Cheshire, manager of software development and network operations, bigredwire. “The ability to offer lower rates and still remain profitable is a key competitive edge for bigredwire. To keep overhead costs down, we chose Solaris x86 as our operating system of choice, to protect our investment and help ensure future scalability and reliability. With the launch of Solaris 10 just around the corner, we expect to see new, innovative features that can offer additional cost savings and improved performance.”

Solaris 10 OS Released Through Software Express For Solaris

Today’s release of the latest update to the Solaris 10 OS is available through the Software Express program, which has provided customers with access to the latest code base from the Sun development team through regular monthly updates since last fall. New features in Solaris 10 include N1 grid containers, which can allow administrators to divide a given system into more than 8000 software partitions per single instance of the OS; predictive self healing technologies that enable isolation, diagnosis, and self-healing of both software and hardware faults; process rights management technology for new levels of security; and a new suite of dynamic tracing capabilities for analyzing and diagnosing elusive problems in real-time. New features added in the latest updates to Software Express for Solaris help reduce complexity and risk of the OS. These include an innovative web interface for installing and patching software, new technology that reduces SPAM email as it arrives from the network, and automatic file system logging which, by default, will increase performance and disaster recovery resilience.

Solaris 9 OS for SPARC and x86 Systems

The newest release of the Solaris 9 OS, designed to help customers drive down their cost of operations while delivering higher service levels, includes:

• Significant Performance Improvements: Nearly double the performance for scientific workloads on x86-based systems and in many cases double the throughput on Sun’s new UltraSPARC IV-based systems. These improvements are mainly attributable to the inclusion of additional architecture-specific optimizations: SSE/SSE2 instruction support in both the kernel and the Java Virtual Machine delivers improved performance for both Xeon and AMD Opteron processor-based systems; Hyper-Threading support is now fully implemented for the Pentium 4 Xeon processor. In addition, the Solaris 9 OS has support for Sun’s Throughput Computing utilizing the chip multithreading (CMT) architecture of the UltraSPARC IV-based processors, multithreaded applications and Sun software which creates the most tightly integrated computing system available, with the power to double customer productivity at a fraction of the cost of competitive systems.
• Improvements to the Solaris volume manager – Helps customers reduce complexity and risk through a simple yet powerful way to combine multiple disks into one new volume. Customers will no longer be tasked with knowing which disks are available, how they are configured and their attributes. Instead, a user can specify the service levels the data requires based on business needs and the Solaris volume manager creates the required configurations.
• Expanded platform support: Solaris 9 now supports new Sun hardware platforms, from the Sun Blade(tm) 1500 and 2500 workstations and the Sun Fire V20z Opteron based server to the new Sun Fire E25K server, bringing all the benefits of Solaris to these new, high-performance, high-throughput systems.

Availability

The March release of Software Express for Solaris is available at: http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/solaris-express/sol_index.html. The April release will be available after April 12th. The sixth update to Solaris 9 is available immediately for download at: http://sun.com/solaris/binaries/get.html.

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, Java, Solaris, N1, Sun Blade, 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.

Sun Microsystems Finance Celebrates Five-Year Anniversary with New Options that Reduce Cost and Complexity while Allowing Customers to Innovate

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced programs aimed at helping customers adopt recently UltraSPARC[R] IV technologies as they become readily available in CYQ2 2004. The new offerings are timed with the five-year anniversary of Sun Microsystems Finance to emphasize Sun’s commitment to delivering end-to-end solutions. Since its inception as a global capability in 1999, the group has offered Sun customers competitive, innovative financing for their total Sun solution, reducing cost and complexity and enabling customers to continually innovate throughout their entire IT lifecycle.

“Financing is becoming a necessary component to competitive bids around the world regardless of economic conditions, particularly for customers concerned about technology obsolescence and total lifecycle solutions,” said Kris Snow, senior director of Sun Microsystems Finance. “Sun has seen an increase in financing needs from customers and potential customers that are looking to finance for a broad range of reasons including better cash-flow management and as a strategic part of their technology refresh program. Sun’s financing capabilities are designed to provide value, reduce complexity, and enable innovation for our customers.”

Sun Microsystems Finance Introduces UltraSPARC Processor Migration Plans

Aimed at reducing long-term cost and simplifying migration to UltraSPARC IV systems, Sun Microsystems Finance is introducing two special, limited-time offers that make it easy and affordable for customers to acquire UltraSPARC III technology today with a defined migration process to UltraSPARC IV systems:

Both plans are available in the U.S. through Sun sales and Sun authorized iForce(sm) Partners. Offers expire June 30, 2004. All transactions subject to Sun Microsystems Finance credit and/or investment approval.

For more information on the UltraSPARC III processor migration plans please visit: www.sun.com/leasing.

Sun Microsystems Finance Completes Sun’s End-to-End Offering

In the five years since its inception as a global capability, Sun Microsystems Finance has grown from having hundreds of millions to over $1.5 billion in assets under management.

A reflection of the business unit’s rapid growth, Sun Microsystems Finance currently provides financing solutions to 90% of Sun’s customer base and handles transactions from $10,000 to $5 million. Today, Sun Microsystems Finance operates in 25 countries worldwide providing customers with competitive, total solutions financing for all Sun hardware, software, services and related third-party products.

Whether a large or small Sun implementation, Sun Microsystems Finance helps provide customers with flexible, highly affordable financing while easing migration to new technology and providing protection from technology obsolescence.

“For Intuit, it’s been the willingess of Sun Microsystems Finance to put together unique programs with creative terms that met our specific requirements,” said Ike Schneider, director of Enteprise Computing at Intuit. “As we learned in our extensive search for a financing source, price and flexibility are equally imperative when choosing a financing solution. Business factors change, and if we want to shorten or lengthen our product refresh cycles, with Sun Microsystems Finance we can.”

Finance Options Designed for the Total Solution

The expanding range of programs offered by Sun Microsystems Finance offer solutions for current IT challenges:

• Increasing Value – Sun Microsystems Finance can provide flexible financing plans that lower the total cost of IT ownership throughout the entire lifecycle. Partnering with Sun Microsystems Finance can enable Sun customers to match payment plans, risk, and upgrade cycles to their business needs.
• Driving Innovation – Working with Sun Microsystems Finance, customers’ financial solutions enable innovation. The business unit works closely with customers to tailor programs that meet their IT requirements today and offer easy refresh and upgrade paths to ensure continuous innovation tomorrow.
• Reducing Complexity – Financing through Sun Finance provides customers with one point of contact and one monthly invoice. Additionally, financing offers customers a predictable upgrade path enabling them to more effectively stay ahead of the technology curve.

“Sun Microsystems Finance created a customized plan that enabled us to match our monthly lease payments to our incoming revenues,” said Frank Gabriel, vice president of Finance for the State University of New York (SUNY). “They provided extremely competitive financing terms — better than other financing alternatives with less paperwork. Their staff operated very professionally and worked with us through a smooth process without complications. Looking back, I’d say we negotiated a win-win solution for both parties.”

The growing Sun Microsystems Finance product portfolio aims to offer tailored options for different needs including:

• Infrastructure Solutions Leasing which includes the recently expanded HP Away Migration Lease that helps allow HP customers to easily and affordably migrate to end-to-end Sun systems built with UltraSPARC and Sun Fire servers running the secure and scalable Solaris Operating System and Sun StorEdge(tm) arrays, providing a no-cost deferral period of up to 90 days for the migration, followed by below market rate financing for 36 months for the entire Sun Infrastructure Solution, including Sun hardware, software and services for qualifying customers.

The HP Away Lease is available in the US and Asia-Pacific through June 30, 2004. All transactions subject to Sun Microsystems Finance credit and/or investment approval.

• SMF Capacity Management Plans can allow customers to lower the initial investment costs of Sun solutions by tying payments to the actual amount of technology used, as measured in storage or processor capacityàpaving the way for a true utility computing model.
• Bundled Financing like the Sun Microsystems Finance Services Bundle plan offers qualifying customers 0% financing on services purchased with hardware equipment. This offering has driven more than $100 million in volume for nearly 200 customers in the U.S.

This offer is available in the US only through June 30, 2004. All transactions subject to Sun Microsystems Finance credit and/or investment approval.

For more information on Sun Microsystems Finance, please visit http://www.sun.com/leasing/

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, Java, Solaris, Sun Fire, Sun StorEdge, iForce 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.

Sun Solidifies Market Leadership Position in Total Worldwide Units Shipped in HPTC Servers; Shows Resurgence in UltraSPARC®- and Solaris(tm)-based Enterprise Class Server Systems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced it maintained the number one position in total server units shipped in the high performance and technical computing market (HPTC), according to IDC’s Technical Qview, Q4 2003. By earning the top spot in the fourth quarter, Sun also claims the crown for most server units shipped during the 2003 calendar year. The report also shows year-over-year revenue growth for the fourth quarter of 42.4 percent for Sun in the HPTC server market.

“Sun’s HPTC strategy is taking off with the right partnerships and the right technology to lower cost and complexity for our customers,” said Shahin Khan, vice president of the High Performance and Technical Computing business unit at Sun. “Recent product introductions including the first AMD Opteron-based server, a new family of throughput computing enterprise server systems featuring the multi-threaded UltraSPARC IV processor that will double customer productivity, and N1 Grid virtualization technologies will help Sun continue to advance its leadership position in HPTC. This new firepower also bolsters Sun’s already impressive lineup of Java-enabled, UltraSPARC- and x86-based servers, which are the ideal building blocks for deploying grid computing solutions.”

Sun’s HPTC group has made deep inroads in attracting significant customers and growing extensive business partnerships and alliances as part of its grid computing initiative. An array of interconnect technology companies recently joined the newly established Sun HPTC Alliance Partner Program geared to advance grid performance for Sun customers. This alliance program aims to provide customers with a wide range of technologies covering data, compute, visualization and access to grid computing solutions. The first HPTC Alliance partners to join include Infinicon, Force10 Networks, Mellanox, Myrinet, Quadrics, Topspin Communications and Voltaire.

Sun also scored an impressive win during the quarter with Pennsylvania State University. Sun systems are being used as part of the Pleiades Cluster, housed in Penn State’s Data Processing Center, which analyzes data from the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO). The cluster plays an important role for the International Virtual Data Grid Laboratory, a global computational laboratory that supports experimentation in grid-enabled, data-intensive scientific computing. Additional highlights from the IDC Technical Server report include:

• Strong results in the departmental computing segment demonstrating continued traction for sales of small and medium nodes into grid clusters, primarily the x86 Xeon-based Sun Fire V60x / V65x servers and the Solaris– and UltraSPARC IIIi-based Sun Fire V210 and V240 servers, and the newly introduced Sun Fire V440 server. The eight-way and 12-way Sun Fire V880 and Sun Fire 1280 also saw strong sales growth of 31.3 percent and 76.5 percent respectively quarter over quarter.
• The resurgence in UltraSPARC- and Solaris-based Enterprise class servers over the previous quarter with solid sales of the Sun Fire 15K server, proving the customer need for large memory SMP systems along with successful cluster grids based on smaller footprint systems.
• Revenue growth in departmental servers of 30 percent quarter over quarter and 100 percent in the fourth quarter year over year.

For a more detailed report see the IDC High Performance Technical Computer Qview Report, 2/23/04

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.

Program Continues Momentum with Over 80 Tru64 Customer Migrations

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced it is expanding its successful HP Away program to include a no risk path to Sun systems for HP-UX customers-a group faced with product delays and inconsistent availability across HP’s product line. Sun is offering these customers a UNIX(R) operating system (OS) alternative with its leading Solaris OS that scales from low cost x86 systems to Sun systems with over 100 processors. Through the HP Away program, Sun will help these customers protect long-term IT investments as they look to consolidate and expand their data centers.

Also today, Sun announced that over 80 customers have taken advantage of Sun’s HP Away program and migrated to Sun systems. The HP Away program was initially launched last year to address customers facing HP’s end-of-development for the Alpha/Tru64 platform and forced migration to Itanium.

“We’re expanding the HP Away program to take advantage of an inflection point in the industry,” said Larry Singer, Sun’s senior vice president, global market strategies. “Specifically, we’re addressing the disruption around HP’s architectural roadmap and its neglect of a key customer base, this time HP-UX users. Even as the technology market is picking up, HP-UX customers are hesitant to expand with an operating system that doesn’t have a clear future. We’re alleviating that problem by providing an easy path to Sun, while using the expanded HP Away program as a tool to help drive our own revenue growth.”

Industry analyst Michael Dortch of the Robert Francis Group also sees the opportunity: “IT executives and enterprises reliant upon HP and its technologies face significant change and uncertainty, precisely when many are challenged to deliver and demonstrate clear, sustainable business value from their IT initiatives. Sun’s HP-UX program (HP Away) combines proven technologies such as SPARC and Solaris with business-centric support and guidance, to offer these enterprises and IT executives a viable migration program and opportunities for significant business value, elasticity, and stability.”

HP-UX Opportunity

Today, there are roughly 270,000-plus PA-RISC/HP-UX customers worldwide. Last year HP announced a delay of its UNIX OS (HP-UX 11i v3) until at least 2005. In addition to this delay, HP-UX is currently not available across all of HP’s product line, unlike the Solaris OS which is available on every system Sun ships, and on key third party platforms. With the expanded HP Away program, Sun is targeting customers considering data center consolidation, as well as customers who are planning to deploy new systems in the next 12-18 months and want to help protect their current IT investments-particularly in the face of increasing uncertainty about the HP enterprise roadmap.

Sun’s program offers enterprise customers a risk-free path to growth on the Solaris OS and provides numerous advantages over HP-UX-beyond its long-term roadmap stability and high-level corporate commitment/investment. The Solaris OS boasts the largest base of ISV support for a UNIX operating system in the industry. Moreover, Sun has overseen 10 years of successful migrations to Solaris OS based on a proven methodology, resulting in reduced costs, increased quality of business services and accelerated development of new applications to meet evolving business needs.

Additionally, the Solaris OS already provides the critical clustering, dynamic partitioning and advanced file system features that HP-UX customers are awaiting sometime next year from HP-UX 11i v3. Solaris also helps ensure a predictable release cycle via its innovative Software Express for Solaris OS program and helps assure compatibility between generations. In addition, Sun provides a clear roadmap for future releases of the leading UNIX OS.

Customer Momentum

TrekLogic, a systems integrator and Sun partner, has worked closely with Sun to migrate over 20 HP-UX customers to Sun’s Solaris OS. “TrekLogic has helped customers ranging from large- to mid-sized installations, and has ensured that each migration was successfully completed within a minimum time period and with negligible business impact.,” said David Custard, director, business development, TrekLogic. “Working with Sun, TrekLogic’s full migration life cycle, from initial assessment, through implementation, post-migration quality assurance, technical transfer and ongoing support provides an end-to-end proven solution which allows customers to begin realizing the benefits of the Solaris platform at the earliest possible time.”

The Canadian province of Nova Scotia is another compelling example. Its numerous public entities manage their finances using SAP R/3 enterprise resource planning applications, which, until recently, resided on legacy Hewlett-Packard servers. Burgeoning usage led the province to seek a new hardware vendor-one committed to investing resources to support this growth. Its search ended with Sun, which worked with the province to migrate the SAP modules to a Sun systems and connected to a storage area network based on Sun StorEdge technologies.

“Sun best met our criteria regarding price-performance, technological robustness and ability to provide a complete solution. By selecting a long-term vendor, we’re saving the province at least 25 percent on hardware costs alone on an ongoing basis,” said Susan Sparks, Director of Corporate Information Systems, Department of Finance, Province of Nova Scotia.

HP Away-Program Overview

As part of the expanded HP Away program, Sun is extending both the easy migration path and attractive lease terms initially offered to Tru64 customers to HP-UX customers as well.

The HP Away program was launched in July of 2003. With it, Sun offers a shared model in which Sun works with customers to deploy an effective migration solution. Included in the program is a two-day migration consultation workshop at no charge, designed to determine the cost and technical requirements involved in a migration.

Customers that meet the determined requirements will also receive the following:

A two-week Tru64 or HP-UX to Solaris OS migration assessment service. If the customer decides not to proceed with the Tru64 or HP-UX to Solaris OS migration, Sun absorbs the cost of the two-week migration assessment service. If the customer decides to proceed, application porting is offered through Sun’s professional services group, teamed with ISVs, and Sun’s iForce centers.

Sun offers planning for IT Organization and Skills Migration that will help improve productivity, decrease time to implement and reduce TCO.

Sun also offers a storage TCO review to justify storage infrastructure migration from HP to Sun storage solutions.

Financing and trade-in offers are available to simplify the financial transition to Sun including a lease structure with deferred payment during the engagement (not to exceed 90 days) for the entire migration-Sun services, servers, storage and software.

Migration to Sun platforms program is a set of complimentary resources to accelerate assessment, execution and optimization of application ports from HP-UX and HP Tru64 to Sun Solaris SPARC/x86. Step-by-step technical guides, tools, service providers and more can be found at: http://www.sun.com/partners/migration. For more information on the HP Away migration program go to www.sun.com/hpuxmigration.

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, iForce, and Solaris 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. Specifications are subject to change without notice.

New Sun Fire(tm) V20z Server Featuring AMD Opteron Processors Power Solaris(tm) and Linux up to 45 Percent Faster than Competition
Sun Fire B1600 Blade Platform Featuring new Sun Fire B200x and N1(tm) Grid Provisioning Server up to 34 Percent Less Expensive than HP

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today delivered on its promise of extreme performance at compelling price points with the new Sun Fire V20z server featuring the screaming performance of the AMD Opteron processors and all the benefits of the Sun Java(tm) Enterprise System running on either the Solaris(tm) Operating System or Linux. Sun also announced new innovations to the Sun Fire B1600 blade platform, including the new Sun Fire B200x dual processor x86 blade and the newest edition of Sun’s N1(tm) Grid Provisioning Server, which allows customers to seamlessly mix, match and manage x86 and UltraSPARC(r) blades running either the Solaris Operating System or Linux as one pool of resources.

“Last November, Sun announced our alliance with AMD,” said Neil Knox, executive vice president, Volume Systems Products, Sun Microsystems, Inc. “And we are already ahead with the first in a complete family of AMD Opteron processor-based systems. This is yet another demonstration of Sun’s strategy to leverage industry economics to bring customers extreme performance at compelling price points with the enterprise-class benefits of the Java Enterprise System for Solaris and Linux.”

Sun and AMD Deliver Network Computing Expertise

Starting at $2,795 (USD), the high-performance Sun Fire V20z features dual AMD Opteron x86 32/64-bit processors and is capable of running Solaris x86 as well as Red Hat and SUSE Linux. The SunFire V20z is priced lower than IBM’s Opteron offerings.

“With Sun’s AMD Opteron processor-based servers, IT customers will have unprecedented flexibility, choice and access to the performance of 32-bit computing with the power of 64-bit computing from a global enterprise leader like Sun,” said Dirk Meyer, senior vice president, Computation Products Group, AMD. “The number of software applications available to the enterprise has grown significantly. Through this alliance, we plan to develop innovative technology that enables enterprise customers to do what they need to do better, faster, more productively, and more cost-effectively than they could ever do before.”

As part of the Sun and AMD alliance, both companies are collaborating to optimize the performance of the Solaris Operating System, the Java technology platform and development tools for AMD Opteron processor-based systems. With the Java Enterprise System and N1 Grid Engine on the Solaris Operating System for the AMD Opteron processor, customers can also benefit from the seamless scalability from single systems to entire compute farms. Sun and AMD also intend to work jointly with the Linux community to define and promote a 64-bit UNIX(r)-Linux Application Binary Interface (ABI) to enable further interoperability. UNIX and Linux applications will be able to run natively on any operating systems supporting this ABI.

“Together Sun and Oracle are delivering a high performance enterprise platform on AMD Opteron processor-based systems,” said Chuck Rozwat, executive vice president, Server Technologies, Oracle Corporation. “The new Sun Fire V20z with Oracle’s highly scalable and flexible database provides customers cost-effective, 64-bit solutions to run mission critical applications.”

Mix, Match and Manage with Sun

Sun adds even more choice to its innovative mix, match and manage Sun Fire B1600 Blade Platform with the new Intel Xeon dual-processor x86 Sun Fire B200x Blade Server and the enhanced N1 Grid Provisioning Server 3.1 Blades Edition. Sun is the only major vendor to offer a comprehensive blade platform, supporting both UltraSPARC and x86, Solaris OS and Linux and specialty networking blades for enhanced networking and security. Sun’s blade platform, fully configured with the new Sun Fire B200x, is up to 34 percent less expensive than a similarly configured blade platform from HP.

Ideal for Web Services deployment, enterprise infrastructure and compute farms, the Sun Fire B200x blade server offers customers superior choice and flexibility and offers the best price-performance and density in the 3U form factor blade space. Alongside the new Sun Fire B200x, Sun announces the enhanced N1 Grid Provisioning Server 3.1 Blades Edition, which enables customers to manage physical devices, such as blades, as a pool of virtualized resources. The N1 Grid Provisioning Server 3.1 Blades Edition is twice as fast as the previous version and can reduce server deployment time from weeks or days to minutes, simplifying blade server management and increasing server utilization. In addition, the new offering expands support for x86 blades and the Sun Fire B10n Content Load Balancing Blade.

New Upgrades and Price Cuts for Sun Fire and Netra Products

Sun also announced that the Sun Fire V240 server will now ship with 1.28 GHz UltraSPARC IIIi processors, increasing performance by up to 33 percent. Prices on the 2 processor, 2 GB memory, 2 disk standard configurations are being reduced by 18 percent on the Sun Fire V210 and 15 percent on the Sun Fire V240. Additionally, following the success of the Netra(tm) 240 DC, launched in December 2003, Sun today unveiled the Netra 240 AC, the industry’s lowest-priced 2-way ruggedized carrier-grade server, specially designed for the stringent needs of the telecommunications industry and government sector.

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, Sun Fire, Solaris, Java, N1, Netra 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.

Company Reports Surge of New Solaris (OS) Customers Including Emerson, HM Prisons Service, Northumberland County Council and University of Virginia

Continuing to meet customers’ demand for bottom-line pricing, innovation and choice, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) today announced that in the last six months a bevy of new customers has selected Oracle(R) E-Business Suite 11i on the Sun Solaris Operating System (OS). As a leading platform for over 35 percent of Oracle E-Business Suite implementations, Sun has recently attracted additional customers around the globe, including Emerson, HM Prisons Service (UK), Northumberland County Council and University of Virginia.

Anchored by decades of joint technology collaboration, Sun and Oracle continue to offer completely tested and configured Oracle E-Business Suite solutions for companies of any size–from enterprise to mid-market. In addition to the popular Solaris OS SPARC(R) platform, customers can deploy Oracle E-Business Suite on industry-standard Red Hat and SuSE distributions of Linux on Sun x86 platforms.

Mutual Commitment

As part of the long-standing alliance, Sun and Oracle share a strong commitment to use each other’s products and technologies in their respective internal IT deployments. For Sun, Oracle Financials and Order Management form the cornerstone of its consolidated global ERP environment. For Oracle, a multitude of Sun servers power parts of its software development, hosting environments and data center operations, including implementation of Oracle’s single global instance for ERP.

Dedicated Competency Centers for Oracle

For maximum investment protection, new and existing Sun and Oracle customers can also leverage the real-world technology and expertise available at the Sun iForce Competency Centers for Oracle (SOATC). These facilities can offer a no-cost opportunity to test and confirm system sizing, configuration and architecture before implementing solutions.

Customer Successes @ OAW

Established customers running the Oracle E-Business Suite on the Sun platform such as Edmonton Public Schools are scheduled to present their success stories in the Sun booth (#1213) at Oracle AppsWorld in San Diego, starting January 27, 2004. Some of the highlights from these testimonials include:

Edmonton Public Schools

The Edmonton, Alberta, public school system is leveraging the Sun platform and Oracle databases for all its high-end administrative computing needs. In addition, the school district chose the Oracle E-Business Suite to provide its financial applications. Already, the Sun and Oracle solutions are delivering 20 percent higher user productivity and 75 percent shorter month-end processing, compared with the previous mainframe-based applications.

“A lot of our success is due to the excellent synergy between Sun and Oracle, one of the reasons why we’ve standardized on them for all of our high-end computing needs,” said Brenda Boychuk, Senior Data Base Analyst, Edmonton Public Schools. “Sun and Oracle have a seven-year track record of delivering stable, reliable service to the school system.”

Specific schedules for customer presentations will be available at the Sun booth.

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, iForce 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. Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of the individual companies and are respectfully acknowledged.

Sun Collaborates with Interconnect Partners to Design and Optimize Network Performance; Continues Growth in Linux-Based HPTC Cluster Deployments Alongside Solaris

System Integrators and Resellers Gain Access to SAS Server Product Ahead of OEM Platforms

Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc., one of the world’s leading suppliers of hard disk drives and computer peripherals, today announced that Alienware, a leading manufacturer of high-performance desktop, notebook, media center, and professional systems, will utilize the Fujitsu MHT-BH 2.5″ 9.5mm mobile hard disk drive (HDD) with Serial-ATA (SATA) interface in its new Area-51m 7700 mobile PC, an ideal solution for the high-end gaming market. This system marks the first implementation of 2.5″ SATA hard disk drive technology in notebook computers.

With the Area-51m 7700, Alienware utilized the latest technology and hardware available, successfully harnessing the power of a desktop computer in a 17″ notebook. The Area-51m 7700 features up to two optical drives and two hard disk drives to give users an unbelievable amount of flexibility and performance to tackle any workload. Fujitsu hard disk drives can be used to create a RAID 0 or RAID 1 array to maximize performance.

“Alienware has become a technology leader based on our ability to recognize the possibilities presented by emerging technologies and implement them in ways that serve the needs of our customers,” said Patrick Cooper, director of product management for Alienware. “With the new Area-51m 7700 we utilized physically small but powerful technologies, such as the Fujitsu MHT-BH hard disk drive, to create a solution that gives users both worlds, the flexibility of a notebook seamlessly blended with the potent performance of a high performance desktop system.”

The Fujitsu MHT-BH hard disk drive, announced in early 2004 as the industry’s first and only 2.5″ SATA hard disk drive, redefined the possibilities for manufacturers in emerging notebook and enterprise storage markets. The MHT-BH hard disk drive is among the smallest, fastest and most efficient hard disk drives enabling innovation and improvements in everything from laptop and notebook computers, to other platforms and applications. The Fujitsu MHT-BH hard disk drive features Native Command Queuing (NCQ), an important feature that intelligently and simultaneously coordinates up to 32 instructions to be queued and reordered by the hard disk controller, contributing to a significant improvement in overall hard disk drive performance.

“Fujitsu’s SATA technology leadership positioned us as the only viable option to provide native Serial ATA II interface hard disk drive technology for notebook systems,” said Joel Hagberg, vice president of marketing and business development, Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc. “We are excited to partner with Alienware and be a part of this next-generation laptop that will pave the way for mobile SATA notebook applications in the future.”

Hard Disk Drive Specifications:

Leveraging its technology leadership and innovation, Fujitsu designed the MHT-BH 2.5″ Serial ATA mobile hard disk drive to provide market-leading specifications that are critical for today’s mobile computing applications:

• Capacity: 40GB, 60GB, 80GB
• Rotational Speed: 5400 RPM
• Areal Density: 69Gb/sq.inch
• SATA Interface

• Native Command Queuing
• Staggered Spin Up
• Hot Plug

• Track to Track Seek Time: 1.5ms
• Host Transfer rate: 150 MB/s
• Operating Shock: 225G (2ms)

About Alienware

Alienware manufactures high-performance desktop, notebook, and media center systems and leading-edge professional systems. Alienware offers unique and award-winning products that incorporate state-of-the-art components, innovative engineering and design, and unprecedented customer service. Alienware systems are available direct within the United States and Europe. For more information, please visit the Alienware site or call 1-800-ALIENWARE (254-3692).
For more information, please see: http://www.alienware.com

About Fujitsu

Fujitsu is a leading provider of customer-focused IT and communications solutions for the global marketplace. Pace-setting device technologies, highly reliable computing and communications platforms, and a worldwide corps of systems and services experts uniquely position Fujitsu to deliver comprehensive solutions that open up infinite possibilities for its customers’ success. Headquartered in Tokyo, Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) reported consolidated revenues of 4.7 trillion yen (US$44.5 billion) for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2005.
For more information, please see: http://www.fujitsu.com

About Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc.

Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc. conducts engineering and marketing activities in San Jose, CA and sales operations throughout the United States. Fujitsu Computer Products of America currently offers products and services including scanners and scanner maintenance, hard disk drives, and Magneto-Optical drives. Fujitsu Computer Products of America is located at 2904 Orchard Parkway, San Jose, CA, 95134. For more information about Fujitsu products and services, call us at 800-626-4686 or 408-432-6333.
For more information, please see: http://www.fcpa.fujitsu.com

Press Contacts

Copyright 2005 Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc. All rights reserved. Fujitsu and the Fujitsu logo are registered trademarks and The Possibilities are Infinite is a trademark of Fujitsu Ltd. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owner. Statements herein are based on normal operating conditions and are not intended to create any implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Fujitsu Computer Products of America, Inc. reserves the right to modify at any time without notice these statements, our services, products, and their warranty and performance specifications.

New x86 and UltraSPARC Systems Provide Customers Greater Flexibility and Choice for Scaling Out Enterprise and Telecom Computing

SunNetwork 2003 Conference and Pavilion – December 3, 2003 – Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced it has expanded its x86 Blade and Netra system portfolio. Sun’s new x86 systems with Solaris or Linux offer customers a lower cost “out-of-the-box” alternative, delivering up to 13 times lower acquisition costs over Microsoft Windows 2003 while leveraging the uncompromising security and reliability of the worldwide market-leading UNIX operating system.[1] .

“The clear message from customers today is that they want reliable, low-cost solutions that are easy to implement,” said Neil Knox, executive vice president, Volume Systems Products at Sun. “Sun is once again breaking new ground in providing scalable end-to-end solutions at lower price points than our competitors and simultaneously improving system reliability.”

At today’s Network Computing quarterly launch at SunNetwork Berlin, Sun unveiled the first multi-architecture blade computing platform, available with UltraSPARC, x86, SSL Proxy and content load balancing blades. Sun also announced its first Netra rack system utilizing the UltraSPARC IIIi processor and the first Netra blade server supporting PICMG 2.16 standards. The new systems allow customers to choose between the following platforms for running their business-critical applications:

Sun today announced the following new features for the Network Computer:

• Solaris OS (x86 Platform Edition): By providing the No. 1 UNIX, Solaris OS, on the x86 platform, Sun continues to provide customers with choice and flexibility.[2] With increased partner support and continuous OS innovation, the Solaris 9 OS (x86 Platform Edition) is experiencing rapid adoption with more than 375,000 registered licenses since January 2003. BEA, Sybase and other partners have recently announced that they are porting their applications to Solaris OS (x86 Platform Edition). In addition, Sun’s Java Enterprise System available on the Solaris OS (x86 Platform Edition) helps to provide customers with rock solid, high performance web service applications, such as the Secure Web Infrastructure Server.
• Linux OS: Support for Red Hat’s RHEL 3.0 and SuSE’s SLES 8.0 enables enterprise computing on open source technology. Typical horizontal applications supported by Red Hat and SuSE include core infrastructure solutions such as web, application and e-mail servers, or compute farms, grid computing and others.

New Blade Servers Lower Operational Costs and Increase Serviceability

Customers can now build flexible and horizontally scalable IT infrastructures that utilize compute resources efficiently, with the availability of a new x86-based blade, which can be deployed as part of the industry’s first multi-architecture blade platform. With this new addition, the Sun Fire B1600 Blade Platform enables maximum flexibility to customers by mixing, matching and managing Solaris and Linux operating systems, SPARC and x86 architectures, and special function blades all in the same chassis.

The Sun Fire B100x is a single processor x86 blade server that utilizes AMD’s Mobile Athlon XP 1800+ processor at 1.53 GHz and one or two gigabytes of DDR memory options — double the memory available in some competitors’ systems. The x86 blade server supports the Solaris 9 Operating System (x86 Platform Edition) and standard Linux distributions from Sun. The entry price point for the B100x is $1795 U.S. List and is available today.

The Sun Fire B10p SSL Proxy blade server, when combined with the Sun Fire B10n Content Load Balancing blade server, can enable better utilization from server resources, as well as deliver fast, reliable responses to Web requests at low costs. The Sun Fire B10p blade server also provides SSL encryption and decryption services when combined with the Sun Fire B10n blade server. The B10p SSL Proxy blade server lists at $13,800 U.S. and is available today.

Sun iForce Partners Welcome Price, Performance Benefits

With the expansion of Sun’s low cost, out-of-the box solutions, Sun iForce partners are discovering the performance and price point benefits. These partners include PolyServe, Inc., Sourcefire, Inc., and Financial Services Market Connectivity partners B2BITS, British Telecom, Century 24 Solutions, COR Financial Solutions, Concise Group Limited, Integra SP, Random Walk Computing, Trace Financial, Trend Micro Inc., and Volante.

New Innovative Netra Servers Reestablish Sun’s Leadership in the NEBS Rack Server Market and Help Customers Reduce Administration and Software Development Costs

Reestablishing Sun’s leadership in the 2-way NEBS server market, the new Netra 240 server, the industry’s first and only 64-bit, NEBS Level 3 certified server that runs on the UltraSPARC IIIi processor, is a low cost, rugged, rack-optimized 2U server starting at $6,995 U.S. List price – which up to 15 percent below comparable Intel-based NEBS Level 3 certified systems from HP and IBM. Designed to withstand the extreme environmental conditions often experienced in telecom central offices, the Netra 240 server offers excellent price/performance, advanced lights out system management (ALOM) and industry leading features like built-in quad Gigabit Ethernet ports (twice what the competition offers), internal 5GB DVD-RW for backup and archival as well as the System Configuration Card (SCC) for faster system recovery. The Netra 240 also offers long term investment protection through our guaranteed application compatibility with current and future servers and operating environments.

Answering customers’ demands for manageable, horizontally scalable, standards-based, NEBS Level 3 certified blade systems, Sun today unveiled the Netra CT820 server, a PICMG 2.16 standard CPSB (CompactPCI Packet Switched Backplane) system running on the proven carrier grade Solaris (SPARC platform). With Sun’s superior manageability technology and systems that deliver the 99.999+ percent system availability required for telecom infrastructure applications, customers can save up to 40 percent on their software development costs for operations, administration and maintenance. The Netra CT820 systems start at $32,995 U.S. List Price including a 21 slot CPSB chassis, one CP2300 UltraSPARC IIi blade, dual redundant DMC alarm cards and 100Base T Ethernet switches with dual Gigabit ethernet uplinks. The Netra CT820 will be generally available in January 2004.

Sun Fire V65x and V60x Systems Get Upgrade

Running the SPEC jAppServer2002 benchmark, the Sun Fire V65x system provides the highest performance results of comparably configured 2-way x86 servers. (Source: http://www.spec.org/jAppServer2002/results/jAppServer2002.html). The new Sun Fire V65x and V60x standard configurations include new 3.2 GHz Xeon processors with an enlarged 1MB L3 cache and will run either Solaris OS or standard Linux distributions from Sun’s partners. The systems are expected to be available next month both from Sun and Sun channel partners.

More information about these products can be found online at http://sun.com/products.

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, iForce, Solaris, Netra, 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 U.S. and other countries, exclusively licensed through X/Open Company Ltd.

[1] When comaring Solaris OS x86 to MS Windows in a typical scenarios on two processor sytems, the total cost of acquisition of the Solaris OS is 13 times less than the cost of a comparable Windows offering – In a Web server configuration, the TCA of Windows is 2X-13X more; Solaris 9 x86 = $250 (unlimited users); MS Windows 2003 = $397 (Web Edition [WE]) or $3,395 (WE and Microsoft Internet Security & Acceleration Server). Source= http://www.microsoft.com/products/info/default.asp

[2] Sun grew its position in the worldwide server market as the undisputed UNIX server leader in Q2CY03. Source – IDC Q2CY03 Worldwide Server Tracker Report (August 28, 2003)

More Than 3,000 Customers, Including Xerox, Enjoy Access To Innovative New Features Through Solaris OS Distributions

SunNetwork 2003 Conference and Pavilion – December 3, 2003 – Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced significant updates to its Solaris Operating System (OS) and additional support for its “military-grade” Trusted Solaris Operating System. In addition, unlike competitors such as HP, which has end-of-lifed certain UNIX offerings such as its Alpha Tru-64 and delayed shipment of HP-UX11i v.3 by 18 months, Sun announced the latest results of investments in the Solaris OS with vast performance improvements, increased security, and breakthrough diagnostic capabilities in the latest Solaris OS distributions. With Sun’s new commitment to provide the Solaris OS on the 32- and 64-bit AMD Opteron processor-based platform — jointly announced with AMD on November 17, 2003 — customers will have a robust, globally supported, high performance and broadly adopted platform, running on SPARC, Intel and AMD Opteron processor-based systems, to turn to as a compelling alternative.

“Customers tell me they are reassured that we have redoubled our efforts with continued investment in the Solaris OS,” said John Loiacono, vice president, operating platforms group for Sun. “With our focus on delivering dramatic performance increases for low-end systems and TCP/IP networking, industry leading security levels, and simple effective virtualization technologies, we are bolstering the Solaris OS as the foundation for the Sun Java Enterprise System for SPARC and AMD Opteron processor-based systems. Sun remains committed to delivering the very same functionality of the Solaris OS on its volume platforms SPARC and x86, which include the AMD Opteron processor, all at aggressive price points.”

Features included in the December Solaris OS distributions include:

• x86 Performance Optimization: Improvements to Solaris x86 OS deliver higher throughput by taking advantage of the full capabilities of today’s x86 platforms with extended instruction sets and higher bandwidth interconnects. Support has been added for the Streaming Instruction set (SSE2 and hyperthreading), which is expected to deliver greatly improved video and audio streaming performance over previously available releases. Sun’s internal tests show industry leading Java technology and application server performance on one to two CPU systems delivering performance increases over earlier versions of the Solaris OS.
• Advancements in Network Performance: Today’s high bandwidth networks place heavy demands on the operating system and on the processor. Sun has redesigned the networking code within the Solaris OS, to deliver dramatically higher network throughput with less processor load. The new version of the Solaris OS delivers from 20 to 47 percent better networking performance than previous versions. Customers can benefit by getting improvements in networking infrastructure without purchasing additional hardware.
• Enhanced Security: Microsoft recently announced that its “Longhorn” Windows Operating System would not be available until mid-2005, leaving its customers waiting for much-needed OS security enhancements. By applying the higher security protection of role based access controls and fine grained privileges within the Solaris OS, systems administrators greatly diminish their risk of viruses, worms, trojan horses, and other malicious code that may find its way into the system. Solaris, already recognized as one of the industry’s most secure operating systems, now gets bolstered with these new features that enable systems administrators to have even more fine-grained control of system security, for example, user and system processes are granted only the necessary access to operating system services and data that they need to perform their tasks and no more.
• DTrace Advanced Tracing: The Solaris OS delivers a new tool that pervasively tracks and logs critical system and software activity on demand – which increases a system administrator’s productivity and helps reduce downtime. The ability to dynamically “trace” every system process allows system administrators and developers to identify the bottlenecks in production systems and/or software applications, thereby dramatically speeding the time to resolution or optimization, saving costs and improving service. Early use of DTrace has shown reductions in resolution time from several days to hours, or even minutes.
• Network File System version 4 (NFS v.4): To save networking infrastructure costs, many IT groups wish to exploit the internet for linking distant data centers. NFS v.4 extends the benefits of file sharing by enabling secure access to files across the internet. The Solaris OS implementation has a stronger security negotiation mechanism, enhanced extensibility capabilities and cross platform interoperability over previous versions of Solaris.

These next generation features are delivered through Sun Software Express, Sun’s innovative early access program that provides subscribers with predictable monthly installments of software code in advance of release and allows them to develop, test and optimize applications to allow for faster time-to-market. Sun Software Express for Solaris, which is the first Sun software product available through this new distribution mechanism, is gaining continued success with more than 3,000 downloads in three months.

“With the Software Express for Solaris program we can take advantage of the latest Solaris technologies on an accelerated schedule, allowing faster time-to-market for our own products,” said Rich Lauria, manager of production controller development at Xerox Corporation. “We immediately embraced the program and are seeing good results.”

In addition, Sun today announced the fifth update to the Solaris 9 OS for SPARC and x86 platforms. New features in the update release include secure provisioning and booting, and change management via the Internet. These features, paired with current capabilities such as Solaris Containers, make the Solaris 9 OS the first commercial UNIX OS that can be booted remotely over the Internet without local network support. The Solaris 9 OS includes resource management capabilities built-in at no additional charge. The latest release also fully integrates the Sun Java Application Server 7 with the Solaris OS x86 and SPARC and includes the lastest Java Virtual Machine, J2SE 1.4.2.

Sun also announced Trusted Solaris for the SPARC and x86 platform, which includes support for additional Sun hardware such as the low-cost Sun Fire V60x and V65x systems, and the Sun Fire V250 and V440 SPARC systems. The latest version of Sun’s military-grade Trusted Solaris OS allows customers to take advantage of unique multi-level security features. Trusted Solaris is now being implemented in commercial application environments, such as banking and healthcare, for the same reasons governments and the armed forces find it useful — military-grade security – which provides mandatory access controls, data separation, and security labels that help prevent unauthorized access and alteration of data.

Increased Momentum for Solaris OS x86

With more than 375,000 registered licenses since January 2003, the Solaris OS x86 is rapidly gaining partner and customer momentum. Sun recently partnered with AMD to deliver Solaris OS support and optimization for AMD’s 32-bit and 64-bit architectures. With support from ISV partners such as BEA, Sybase and others, the Solaris x86 application portfolio is expanding quickly. Customers such as Maya Online, Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research and GetMore Securities have chosen Solaris x86 over competing operating systems. Additionally, more than 175 systems are now listed on the Solaris x86 hardware compatibility list (HCL), enabling customers to take advantage of the enterprise-class Solaris OS on third-party x86 systems. For more information on the Solaris OS, please visit: http://www.sun.com/solaris

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, Java, Solaris, Trusted Solaris, Sun Fire, SunNetwork, J2ME 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 U.S. and other countries. AMD and AMD Opteron are trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.