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Sun Launches Hardware Compatibly List (HCL) Program; Invites Vendors to Test Products on Solaris x86 Platform

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) today announced significantly expanded hardware support for the Solaris Operating System (OS) x86 Platform Edition. Sun’s goal is to ensure that the Solaris OS x86 is available on the widest range of x86 systems by adding 100 new third-party systems and 100 new components to its Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) delivering more value, choice and flexibility to customers.

Sun also introduced a hardware certification test suite (HCTS) and promotion program. The HCTS is available immediately and enables integrators, system vendors and independent hardware vendors (IHVs) to self-certify their x86 platforms and extend their reach to customers. All Solaris 9 OS x86 users and vendors are invited to participate, test and list their products on the official Sun Solaris 9 OS x86 HCL site.

Today, IHVs wanting to leverage the growing market for Solaris x86 are delivering the device driver support needed for enterprise-class deployments. Customers can access a detailed Solaris x86 hardware compatibility list at www.sun.com/bigadmin/hcl and take advantage of a full range of certified drivers and system configurations, and a growing catalog of third-party and open-source applications.

“As we continue to kick the Solaris x86 program into high gear, our partner response has been overwhelming,” said Ann Wettersten, vice president of marketing, software systems group at Sun. “We’ve seen more than 250,000 additional registered licenses of Solaris 9 x86 from industries such as finance, government, retail and telecom in the past four months alone. Customers are asking Sun and our partners for a proven, secure, enterprise-class operating system that leverages the x86 volume platform and is free and clear from any litigation concerns at a very aggressive price point.”

As mass viruses continue to pose a significant threat to any organization’s IT infrastructure, customers are looking to utilize the most reliable and secure system at a competitive price. With licensing starting at $99, the Solaris 9 OS x86 provides key integrated applications with built-in security features such as an integrated, enterprise-class firewall. For additional security, the Trusted Solaris OS for x86 delivers carrier-grade availability with military-grade security. Trusted Solaris is the only enterprise-class OS that provides the highest level of security assurance in the market.

“Sun is aggressively moving to ensure that Solaris x86 is available on the widest variety of x86 systems. Through our partnership agreement with Sun, Electronic Business Solutions (EBS) will fully integrate, service and support the Solaris x86 platform on a variety of high volume x86 systems to offer our customers the benefits of the leading UNIX(r) operating system,” said Fran Oh, President and CEO of Electronic Business Solutions. “EBS has been authorized by HPQ to support the Solaris OS x86 platform on their Proliant servers. EBS will be providing HPQ field sales team and customers with front line sales support as well as integration, service and support worldwide.”

“Sun selected Xoriant as its certification partner to help customers and OEMs certify their specific x86 systems with the Solaris OS x86,” said Girish Gaitonde, CEO of Xoriant. “Our partnership with Sun further accelerates the Solaris x86 adoption rate by providing a turnkey approach for Sun partners and customers who want to outsource compatibility testing for their x86 products.”

In addition to offering a highly secure operating system, Sun delivers a safe choice amid pending intellectual property disputes. Sun indemnifies its customers for all Solaris Operating Systems, including Sun’s SPARC, x86 and Trusted Solaris, making the Solaris OS a safe choice for customers moving forward.

About the Solaris x86 Platform Edition

The Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) is the premiere UNIX OS for the enterprise. Solaris 9 OS x86 offers customers increased service levels with decreased costs, while providing key integrated applications, superior Java performance, reliability, serviceability, scalability, hardware utilization, interoperability, and binary compatibility with Linux. For IT managers of small to medium sized businesses, who are dissatisfied with high infrastructure costs and expensive workgroup server environments, Solaris x86 brings its enterprise-class, robust Solaris Operating System to the low-cost computing environment. Currently, more than 1,000 applications from more than 600 ISVs are available on Sun’s Solaris x86 Platform Edition ranging from database, security and Web services applications to vertical solutions such as military-grade solutions for government and defense applications

Register for SunNetwork 2003 Conference and Pavilion

The SunNetwork 2003 Conference and Pavilion is the only conference 100 percent dedicated to showcasing end-to-end solutions from Sun and our iForce partners. SunNetwork 2003 will provide information and insights through more than 200 education and technical sessions about products and innovations designed to reduce the cost and complexity of network computing. More information about SunNetwork 2003 and registration is available online at http://sunnetwork.sun.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, Solaris, Trusted Solaris 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.  

— Company Inks Mega Deals with General Dynamics, Southwest Airlines and Department of Veterans Affairs, Among Others

— Sun Assembles x86 Advisory Board to Improve Customer Value with Tighter Software and Hardware Integration

Demonstrating a commanding position in the low-cost computing market, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced it has forged major deals with industry-leading businesses since the launch of Network Computing 2003 on February 10. These low-cost product offerings have attracted customer wins from leading companies and organizations such as Best Buy Canada, Dartmouth College, General Dynamics, GetThere (a Sabre Holdings Company), Land Rover, Northeastern University, University of Notre Dame, Southwest Airlines, Telus, University of Southern California (USC), West McLaren Mercedes and the Department of Veterans Affairs.

This major surge in customer wins highlights the significant demand for Sun’s low-cost products in the marketplace. For example, customers are looking to Sun over the competition for low-cost storage solutions, such as the Sun StorEdge 3300 family, which complements Sun’s entry-level servers and supports everything from the Solaris Operating System to Linux. Along with cost savings, Sun is providing its customers with simplified, low-cost, comprehensive storage solutions that reduce IT complexity and enable businesses to better manage, control and access information assets.

Sun’s other low-cost product offerings include workstations, entry-level Sun Fire and Netra servers. In addition, the Sun Fire B1600 Blade Platform allows customers to mix, match and manage the Solaris and Linux operating systems, SPARC and x86 architectures and special function blades in one chassis.

“These wins are a testament to the fact that none of our competitors can match the unparalleled choice, innovation and value that Sun brings to low-cost computing. Sun’s strategy of providing a choice of systems solutions is resonating with customers in a big way,” said Neil Knox, executive vice president, Volume Systems Products. “Our entry-level product line and integrated systems approach have garnered tremendous market momentum. Customers want open, integratable systems that offer enterprise-class features, service and support. Whether it’s Solaris on x86 or SPARC platform, or standard Linux on x86, Sun is delivering a broad range of powerful low-cost solutions that meet our customers immediate and long-range needs.”

“Sun is also meeting its customers’ demand for value and low cost. Sun has demonstrated it is committed to price points below Dell, IBM, and HP in the low-cost computing market. Sun’s best-in-class offerings are gaining speed throughout the industry,” Knox said.

Driving Low Cost Momentum with ISV and Channel Partners

The x86 ISV Advisory Board – an expansion of Sun’s Linux ISV Advisory Board created in January 2003 – is committed to continually improving total customer value with tighter software and hardware integration on Sun products built on the x86 architecture.

“The ISV Advisory Board is providing valuable customer and partner insight in an effort to help shape Sun’s low-cost computing strategy,” said Tim Bergloff, vice president, Global Sun Alliance, SourceFire. “Sun is a visionary company and the expansion of this board is a positive move to ensure it delivers products to the market that score with the ISV community. Sun has proven it highly values being responsive and flexible to the needs of its partners and customers.”

“From its inception twenty-one years ago, Sun recognized the needs and success of its partners were indivisible from its own,” said Stuart Wells, senior vice president, market development, Sun Microsystems. “By providing advanced insight into Sun’s x86-based product roadmap, the ISV Advisory Board provides an open forum for ISV partners to give direct and honest feedback.”

Sun Delivering Vertical Market Solutions

Sun is making significant inroads with its entry-level solutions, which combine systems and the Sun ONE software stack in several important vertical markets such as airlines, automotive, education, government, manufacturing, retail and telecommunications. General Dynamics, one of the world’s leading defense contractors, partnered with Sun to secure a multi-billion dollar contract with the U.S. Army in June.

“Sun provides our armed forces with secure and powerful systems required for combat ready applications,” said Chris Marzilli, vice president and general manager of commercial hardware systems, General Dynamics C4 Systems. “Sun’s entry-level workstations and servers possess the proven, military-grade, fault tolerant technology necessary to withstand very demanding battlefield conditions.”

Southwest Airlines also turned to Sun’s superior low-cost computing technology in building a shared infrastructure to handle database needs for several projects.

“As the nation’s largest low fare airline, Southwest Airlines demands technology solutions that not only emphasize value, but can handle the rigors of massive, high volume applications. Whether it’s processing critical operational data like flight schedules or tracking postal packages across the country, Sun’s open and integratable systems give Southwest Airlines the network computing power and flexibility to manage extremely heavy workloads while delivering the industry’s best price performance,” said Kerry Schwab, Director Midrange and Intel Computing, Technology Department, Southwest Airlines.

“Enterprises today are demanding cost-effective IT solutions that solve their most pressing business problems,” said Jean S. Bozman, vice president, Global Enterprise Server Solutions, IDC. “Since its launch in February, Sun’s low-cost computing initiative has helped many enterprises to meet those needs more effectively, to utilize resources more fully, and to quickly deploy total solutions including servers, storage, software and services that address both near-term and long-term business requirements. Sun remains a strong volume-server vendor (servers priced less than $25,000), and the leader in Unix volume server shipments and revenues, based on Q103 IDC worldwide data.”

Sun’s assault on the low-cost computing market has cemented a leadership position, providing customers with unprecedented value and price-performance. Please see the following releases: June 17, 2003, “Sun Microsystems Delivers Secure, Low-cost Computing in the Financial Services Market” and June 10, 2003,”Sun’s Low-cost Computing Model Hits Mark With Retail Leaders.” For more information on Sun’s low-cost computing initiative, please visit the World Wide Web at http://sun.com/lowcost/momentum/.

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 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.  

Sun Fire V480 Server is a Low-Cost, Better Price-Performance Alternative to HP and Dell Systems

Delivering on its commitment to offer low-cost computing products, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced that its Sun Fire V480 server now features 1.05 GHz UltraSPARC® III Cu processors and provides greater processing power. This increase in processing power has proven a 22 percent boost in performance and a 26 percent increase in price-performance(1). With new, industry-standard benchmark results, powered by faster, UltraSPARC III 1.05 GHz processors, combined with Sybase IQ12.5 and running the Solaris[tm] 9 operating system, the Sun Fire V480 server outperformed HP by 33 percent, proving to offer the best price-performance four-way system on the market. On performance alone, the Sun Fire V480 server outperformed Dell by 8 percent.

“Our Sun Fire V480 server aims to deliver more than what Dell, HP or any of our competitors offer – integrated systems with more value,” said Souheil Saliba, vice president of marketing, volume systems products group at Sun. “Without compromising on performance, we are sweetening our offering for our customers, providing systems with a balanced architecture, proven, scalable Sun[tm] ONE software and binary-compatibility – all designed to reduce cost and complexity in the data center.”

In the four processor rack-optimized server market (all OS), Sun grew more market share in factory revenue in Q1 2003 than any other vendor year-over-year, according to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker, June 2003(2). This phenomenal growth was propelled by the Sun Fire V480 server.

Sun Fire V480 Server Proves Best Price-Performance

Industry-standard TPC-H 100 GB benchmark submissions among four-way 100GB systems prove that the Sun Fire V480 server offers better price-performance than Dell’s PowerEdge 6650 and HP’s DL580 G2 servers. The Sun Fire V480 server achieved a QphH @ 100GB result of 2,140.6 with a price-performance of $44 per QphH @ 100GB, up to 8 percent better performance than Dell, which runs at nearly twice the GHz.

Competitive TPC-H @100GB Results:

Sybase IQ, a product designed specifically for data warehousing applications, was used as the database manager. The Sybase IQ RDBMS, combined with the Sun Fire V480 server, can provide dramatic reductions in the cost and amount of disk storage needed to support a data warehouse.

Pricing and Availability

The Sun Fire V480 system starts at $19,995 (USD) with two 1.05 GHz CPUs and 4GB of memory and is generally available now. The system is complementary to the Sun StorEdge[tm] 3510 Fibre Channel and 3310 SCSI arrays, and can be pre-configured and integrated onsite at Sun prior to shipping through the Sun Customer Ready Systems (CRS) program.

About TPC-H

Established by the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC), the TPC-H benchmark is an industry-standard Decision Support test designed to measure systems’ capability to examine large volumes of data, execute queries with a high degree of complexity, and give answers to critical business questions. The TPC-H benchmark evaluates a composite performance metric (QphH@size) and a price/performance metric $/QphH@size) that measure the performance of various decision support systems by the execution of sets of queries against a standard database under controlled conditions.

TPC-H, QphH and $/QphH are trademarks of the TPC. For additional information on the TPC-H benchmark, please visit the Transaction Processing Performance Council’s Web site at http://www.tpc.org/.

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

(1) Sun Fire V480 @ 900MHz results: 1760 QphH @ 100, $60 US per QphH @ 100: March, 2003 TPC-H benchmark @100GB

(2) Sun’s unit market share jumped three points from 18.4% in Q4CY02 to 21.4% in Q1CY03. Dell’s market share grew 2.1 points from 12.6% in Q4CY02 to 14.7% in Q1CY03. HP grew 0.2 points from 33.2% in Q4CY02 to 33.4% in Q1CY03. IBM declined 6.8 points from 24.8% in Q4CY02 to 18.0% in

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

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

Tech Data Leverages Sun’s Low-Cost, High-Powered Entry-level Systems to Deliver Enterprise Class Solutions to Midsize Businesses

Sun Microsystems, Inc.(NASDAQ: SUNW) and Tech Data Corporation are expanding their distribution agreement to more aggressively drive Sun technology solutions to midsize enterprises across the United States. Tech Data resellers can now offer customers Sun’s line of entry-level systems, which provide a low-cost, high-performance technology solution for small and midsize businesses. As part of Sun’s 100% partner-led mid-market strategy, this expanded relationship adds to the portfolio of Sun servers, storage, software and services that Tech Data resellers can leverage to build and deploy Network Computing solutions with maximum levels of reliability, availability and scalability.

“Sun has been aggressively pursuing market opportunities with midsize enterprises for some time,” said Gary Grimes, vice president, U.S. Partner Sales and Management at Sun Microsystems, Inc. “Our presence is growing, and Tech Data has the established reseller relationships that will help us continue to expand. Customers will now have even greater access to Sun’s low-cost, enterprise class products through Tech Data’s proven distribution channel.”

To help solution providers enter or expand their reach within the mid-market, Tech Data and Sun have created two new partner categories: “Registered Volume Reseller” and “Authorized Volume Reseller.” As entry-level partners, Registered Volume Resellers will have access to Sun’s full line of Linux-based servers and the workgroup storage products for the mid-market. No certification or fees are required to participate in this program; new partners must register with Tech Data.

Authorized Volume Resellers will be a part of Sun’s iForce Community, which provides access to both Sun’s SPARC� and x86-based entry-level servers, as well as all storage products available through Tech Data, including the workgroup storage products and the Sun StorEdge Resource Management Suite. To become an Authorized Volume Reseller, solution providers must have equivalent technology certifications, such as the Red Hat Certified Engineer (RHCE) certification. Additionally, Authorized Volume Resellers gain access to Sun’s iForce Partner Program benefits, including leasing, SunFund, rebate and other programs.

Tech Data will also support Sun solution providers through a comprehensive channel program that includes:

• Experienced product marketing teams in both systems & storage solutions
• A team of Sun-certified systems engineers with certifications including CompTIA Linux+, Sun Workgroup Products, Sun Certified Systems Administrator for Solaris OS and TruSecure TICSA
• Six strategically located U.S. distribution centers for rapid order fulfillment
• Custom integration services center
• Enterprise Specialized Business Unit (SBU) with dedicated Field Sales Engineers

Tech Data and Sun will work closely with Tech Data’s TechSelect community – a membership-based alliance of value-added resellers focused on the small-to-midsize enterprise market – to identify new opportunities and drive incremental sales within the mid-market. Tech Data’s Enterprise SBU resources are also available to support solution providers with more advanced server technologies that typically require longer sales cycles and highly specialized support requirements.

“Over the past year Tech Data and Sun have worked collaboratively to develop this offering to support solution providers serving the mid-market and how together, we could provide exceptional value to the channel,” said Joe Serra, Tech Data vice president of Software and Systems Product Marketing at Tech Data Corporation. “Adding Sun’s line of mid-market products to our current portfolio provides us with a distinct advantage in the marketplace while offering solution providers greater choice in a wider array of technology solutions.”

Sun Products Now Available through Tech Data:

About Tech Data

Tech Data Corporation (NASDAQ/NMS: TECD), founded in 1974, is a leading global provider of IT products, logistics management and other value-added services. Ranked 117th on the Fortune 500, the company and its subsidiaries serve more than 100,000 technology resellers in the United States, Canada, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe and the Middle East. Tech Data’s extensive service offering includes pre- and post-sale training and technical support, financing options and configuration services as well as a full range of award-winning electronic commerce solutions. The company generated sales of $15.7 billion for its most recent fiscal year, which ended January 31, 2003.

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, Sun StorEdge, SunFund, iForce, Sun Cobalt, StarOffice and “The Network Is The Computer” are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

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

High-End System First to Break 200,000; Results Spotlight Server’s High Performance and Technical Computing Capabilities

Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced its flagship high-end server, the Sun Fire 15K, has delivered the industry’s best peak performance results on the SPEC OMPL2001benchmark. Outclassing both HP and SGI(1), the 72-processor Sun Fire 15K server, configured with 1.2 Ghz UltraSPARC(r) III processors and the Solaris Operating System, is the first server to break the 200,000 mark with a score of 213,466, demonstrating the system’s ability to efficiently scale and run large parallel applications in high-performance and technical computing (HPTC) environments.

The 72-processor Sun Fire 15K server delivered nearly 8 percent better peak performance than its closest competitor, a 128-processor system from SGI; and 30 percent better peak performance than HP’s 64-processor server. These results underscore the power of Sun’s crossbar-based SMP Sun Fire architecture which allows memory-intensive HPTC applications to achieve industry-leading scalability and faster time-to-solution.

Sun’s broad product line has a long history of multiple CPU support, large page features and memory placement optimization which enabled the Solaris OS to handle the large datasets used by SPEC OMPL2001 and allowed the applications to take advantage of the best possible placement of data in memory.

The SPEC OMPL2001 benchmark measures the performance of a system’s processors, memory architecture, operating system and compilers on compute-intensive parallel processing applications based on the OpenMP standard. Components of the SPEC OMPL2001 test cover a diverse set of important applications including, fluid dynamics, computational chemistry, crash simulations, structural analysis, and high-energy physics. OpenMP allows a user to write directives to specify parallelism in an application. Sun has a long history of providing world-record peformance on both technical and commerical applications on general purpose systems that demonstrate near-linear scalability on large shared memory systems.

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

(1) SPEC** and the benchmark name SPEComp** are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Competitive benchmark results stated above compared to SGI’s Origin 3900 and HP’s Superdome reflect results published on www.spec.org as of Nov. 10, 2002, and June 17, 2002, respectively. The comparison presented above is based on the peak metric for all systems for which there are submitted results. For the latest SPEC OMP benchmark results, visit http://www.spec.org/omp/results.

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

Sun Reduces Prices on Sun Fire V880 and V480 Systems by Up to 25 Percent; Enhanced Sun Fire V880 System Delivers 17-Percent Increase in Processor Speed and Sets Price-Performance World Record

Proving that a best-selling server can get even better, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today offers a price reduction of up to 25 percent and delivers a 17-percent increase in processor speed on its industry-leading Sun Fire V880 systems. Sun is also reducing prices on its fastest-growing four-way Sun Fire V480 systems by up to 20 percent.

Delivering on its price-performance proposition, the Sun Fire V880 server features the 1.05 GHz UltraSPARC III Cu processor as well as the scalable and secure Solaris Operating Environment(OE). In addition, both systems represent an ideal systems platform on which to develop and deliver services on demand using Sun’s award-winning portfolio of software products integrated into Sun ONE (Sun Open Net Environment) software platform. These moves further substantiate Sun’s commitment to delivering low-cost computing systems and true price-performance value to customers.

According to IDC’s worldwide server report for the first quarter of 2003, Sun shipped more eight-processor servers, as well as gained more unit market share and revenue market share quarter-over-quarter, comparing Q103 to Q402, than Dell, HP or IBM (1). This level of demand for the Sun Fire V880 server allows Sun to pass volume-production savings through to its customers, including Archipelago, a company that is using Sun Fire V880 and V480 systems for powering its next-generation all-electronic stock exchange.

“Over the last year, Sun has introduced a variety of products that have significantly raised the bar on price-performance. The Sun Fire V880 server featuring the 1.05GHz UltraSPARC III Cu processor and an up-to-25 percent reduction in price is no exception,” said Warren Mootrey, director, Volume Systems Products at Sun Microsystems, Inc. “The Sun Fire V880’s success combined with the phenomenal acceptance of our Sun Fire V480 server has helped us grow significant revenue market share in the 4-8 way category. With these reductions in price and the increase in performance, we expect to penetrate the market even more by providing enterprise-class systems at low-cost computing prices.”

Sun Fire V880 System Conquers Benchmark Tests

Demonstrating the real-world value that the Sun Fire V880 server can bring to customers’ application price/performance, the enhanced Sun Fire V880 server is delivering record-setting benchmark results. Powered by eight UltraSPARC III 1.05GHz processors and running Sybase IQ 12.5 database on the Solaris 9 Operating Environment, the Sun Fire V880 server breaks the price-performance world record on the TCP-H @1000 GB benchmark, topping the HP 9000 SuperDome’s previous record by nearly 50 percent.

The benchmark results prove that the Sun Fire V880 system and Sybase IQ combination provides customers with the lowest-cost one-terabyte data warehouse solution on the market. Delivering a total three-year cost of ownership less than $233,000, the Sun Fire V880 system’s price-performance value proposition beats competitive offerings, which can’t be found for less than $5.2 million for a total three-year cost of ownership, by a massive margin.

Customers Prove the Sun Fire V880 and V480 Systems Are Up to the Task

The Blueprint Initiative at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada utilizes six Sun Fire V880 systems and two Sun Fire V480 systems in a redundant, highly available configuration to power its cutting-edge Biomolecular Interaction Network and SeqHound databases.

“At Blueprint, we require high-volume, reliable and powerful systems at a very competitive price,” said Eric Andrade, chief strategy, tactics and external relations officer, for the Blueprint Initiative. “The Sun Fire V880 and V480 systems are playing a critical role in helping bring our database to life. They provide the crucial processing power that a project of this magnitude requires and offer impressive flexibility and low carrying costs while accommodating Blueprint’s essential research needs.”

With its unique ability to consolidate multiple applications on a single server at an aggressive price point, customers in nearly every major vertical market, from education and telecom to financial services and government, have chosen the Sun Fire V880 server for a variety of database, application and file server needs. More than 250 universities throughout North America have successfully put Sun Fire V880 and V480 systems to the test as key components of their IT infrastructure, including Stanford, Emory, John Hopkins, Brigham Young and Cal Poly Pomona Universities.

Cost Savings and Availability

The Sun Fire V880 system starts at $32,995 (USD) with 2 CPUs and 4GB of memory. The Sun Fire V480 system starts at $19,995 (USD) with 2 CPUs and 4GB of memory. Both systems allow for growth to meet demanding business requirements without requiring changes to the operating system and are complementary to the Sun StorEdge 3510 Fibre Channel and 3310 SCSI arrays.

Sun Services helps customers continue to control costs when deploying the Sun Fire V880 and V480 servers by migrating and consolidating legacy applications. Both servers are also now available through Sun iForce partners. In addition, the Sun Fire V880 and V480 servers can be pre-configured and integrated onsite at Sun prior to shipping through the Sun Customer Ready Systems (CRS) program.

The TPC-H Benchmark TPC-H is a data warehousing-oriented, non-industry-specific benchmark that consists of a large number of complex queries typical of decision support applications. It also includes some insert and delete activity that is intended to simulate loading and purging data from a warehouse. TPC-H measures the combined performance of a particular database manager on a specific computer system.

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

(1)IDC Quarterly Server Tracker, Q1CY2003, published May 30, 2003.

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

Company Also Announces Performance Enhancements to PRIMEPOWER 650 and 850 Servers to Maintain Industry Leadership with Powerful SPARC64 V Processors

Fujitsu Technology Solutions, Inc., a member of the worldwide group of Fujitsu companies, today aannounced its next generation of entry-level PRIMEPOWER(tm) servers featuring mainframe technologies and reliability previously unavailable on lower end computing platforms. Fujitsu’s new Solaris(tm) compatible, SPARC” compliant PRIMEPOWER 250 and 450 server models extend the reach of PRIMEPOWER servers to the edge of the network, to deliver performance to critical customer-facing systems and applications.

Fujitsu’s new entry-level PRIMEPOWER 250 and 450 servers deliver high performance, high reliability, and high availability to e-business and transaction processing applications, all with a smaller footprint than other machines in their class. The PRIMEPOWER 250 and 450 feature up to two and four 1.1 GHz processors, respectively, that perform up to six simultaneous instructions. They offer 1 MB of on-chip Second Level Cache, fast buses, and larger disk capacity to address a whole new set of network edge server needs.

“These servers bring the best technology from mainframe computing to aggressively meet the needs of customers who are currently experiencing limitations in power and performance at the entry point,” said Richard McCormack, vice president of product marketing at Fujitsu Technology Solutions, Inc. “The low end of the server market will be redefined with the introduction of the PRIMEPOWER 250 and 450, two server models that bring performance and reliability to the network edge and address needs that were previously unmet in this class.”

“Fujitsu’s new generation of servers bring high-end system performance to the low end that has not been seen to date,” said Vernon Turner, group vice president, Global Enterprise Server Solutions, IDC. “As customer performance demands continue to increase at the entry level, Fujitsu’s PRIMEPOWER 250 and 450 are addressing the most urgent computing needs by giving customers mainframe-like capabilities, reliability, and availability.”

Fujitsu has developed a new self-healing and self-monitoring architecture that is featured on the PRIMEPOWER 250 and 450 servers. Unlike some systems that require constant monitoring for signs of imminent failure, Fujitsu’s new low-end servers need no such oversight. They can also be connected via the Web, email or private connection to remote monitoring services for very fast turnaround on preventative maintenance, component replacement, and system problem support. This ensures that PRIMEPOWER servers meet all the needs of the world’s most demanding applications.

“We feel confident that the advanced capabilities of Fujitsu’s PRIMEPOWER 250 and 450 will provide the performance and reliability we need to better analyze customer data for the development of predictive models,” said Ronald Williams, manager of service operations technology, Earthlink. “This information is vital to Earthlink, and helps us maintain the outstanding customer satisfaction for which the company is known. Fujitsu’s machines offer capabilities we’d expect from a mainframe but are available at an attractive price and in a compact package.”

Initially developed and tested for large-scale mission-critical environments, these innovations have been embodied in all the processors and hardware components now used across the entire global PRIMEPOWER product range.

Like their high-end family members, the PRIMEPOWER 250 and 450 provide a unique feature called hardware instruction retry. PRIMEPOWER systems will retry a failed instruction at the hardware level, enabling the instruction to be retried immediately, eliminating time-consuming flushing and rebuilding of the software buffers. This corrects 98 percent of noise-generated errors. The new server models also offer additional parity checking functionality that ensures that processing errors are automatically self-corrected, including cache errors.

“The growing momentum behind the Solaris 9 Operating System is fueling growth in the Solaris market,” said Graham Lovell, marketing director, Sun Microsystems. “The Solaris OS is the best choice for deploying secure and robust business critical applications in today’s economy.”

Extended System Control Function (XSCF) technology is another feature included in the latest additions to the PRIMEPOWER family. This enhances the reliability level of all functions within the server to an autonomous self-healing capability. XSCF means reduced operational costs through more efficient systems management.

Partners Weigh In

“The introduction of the new PRIMEPOWER systems, with their improved performance and RAS features, is good news for customers” said Dave Dargo, vice president, System Platforms Division, Oracle. “Oracle9i(tm) Database with Real Application Clusters on these new servers provides real business and technology benefit by delivering a stable, highly available system that can scale as needed.”

“As a strategic partner providing leading storage software solutions and joint support for PRIMEPOWER servers, VERITAS Software welcomes Fujitsu’s extension of mission-critical computing ability to its entire range of PRIMEPOWER servers,” said Kevin Reinis, vice president of business development and strategic alliances, VERITAS Software. “Through tightly integrated, interoperable solutions with our partners, VERITAS enables utility computing in today’s multi-vendor data center environments. Our products running on the new Fujitsu® servers will continue to provide customers with superior high availability, data protection and storage management solutions for cost-effective computing and improved service levels throughout their IT organization.”

PRIMEPOWER 650 and 850 Upgrades

Fujitsu also today announced performance upgrades to the PRIMEPOWER 650 and 850 8-way and 16-way servers, respectively. Both systems will now feature 1.08 GHz SPARC64® V processors, enabling tremendous speed for business-critical UNIX® enterprise applications. The two servers will see performance upgrades up to 1.35 GHz in future product enhancements.

Availability

Fujitsu’s PRIMEPOWER 250 and 450 server models are now generally available. The PRIMEPOWER 650 and 850 with performance upgrades are also currently shipping.

Pricing starts from $7500 for the PRIMEPOWER 250.

About Fujitsu Technology Solutions

Fujitsu Technology Solutions, Inc., headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, offers worldwide IT infrastructure solutions that encompass a range of technology solutions and fully customized managed services. Fujitsu Technology Solutions, Inc., an expert in enterprise and open systems server and storage solutions, focuses on delivering high availability, mission-critical, scalable solutions in the large-systems marketplace. Drawing on the skills and experience of Fujitsu Limited, as well as our many partner companies, Fujitsu Technology Solutions Inc. enables customers to balance the needs of rapid change and stability while maximizing the return on investment in existing and new technologies.

Fujitsu and the Fujitsu logo are registered trademarks of Fujitsu Limited. PRIMEPOWER is a trademark or registered trademark of Fujitsu Limited in the United States and other countries. UNIX is a registered trademark of The Open Group in the United States and other countries. Oracle 9i is trademark or registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. SPARC and SPARC64 are registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. Products bearing the SPARC trademark are based on an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Solaris is a trademark or registered trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks and product names are the property of their respective owners. Specifications are subject to change without notice. For the latest detailed information, contact your local sales representative.

© 2003 Fujitsu Technology Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. FTSI-009-03

Sun’s Server Delivers Best Price Performance – First to Break the $200/QphH@3000GB Barrier for Any Configuration

Sun Microsystems, Inc. today announced another record-breaking benchmark in a series of announcements that further validates its performance and price/performance superiority. Performance tests of Oracle9i Database Release 2 running on the Sun Fire 15K server, Sun StorEdge arrays and the Sun ONE platform have established Sun as the fastest performing and best price/performance single system on the market. This industry standard benchmark represents ad-hoc queries and is representative of the real-world decision support and data warehousing applications. IBM has yet to run a TPC-H benchmark on its mainframe or p690 single-system server.

The Sun Fire 15K system outperformed the next best single server, the HP Superdome, 23 percent on the high-load throughput test. Throughput is a measure of a heavily-loaded system, it also beat HPs price/performance by seven percent.

The benchmark was performed on a 72-way 1.2 GHz UltraSPARC[r] III processor-based Sun Fire 15K system with 288GB of memory, running the industry-leading Solaris 9 Operating System (OS) and Oracle9i Database Release 2, topping the performance of all HP systems. The server also utilized 33 Sun StorEdge A5200 disk arrays. The system delivered 28,948.1 QphH@3000GB at a price performance of $184/QphH@3000GB, with a scheduled availability of April 30, 2003.

The versatile 72-way Sun Fire 15K server with 1.200 GHz CPUs is rated by Sun at 7,250 Mainframe Equivalent MIPS, which surpasses the fastest IBM mainframe, while maintaining a lower price. Following are TPC-H Version 2 performance and price/performance results currently published for the 3000GB scale factor.

About TPC-H

Established by the Transaction Processing Performance Council (TPC), the TPC-H benchmark is an industry-standard Decision Support test designed to measure systems’ capability to examine large volumes of data, execute queries with a high degree of complexity, and give answers to critical business questions. The TPC-H benchmark evaluates a composite performance metric (QphH@size) and a price/performance metric $/QphH@size) that measure the performance of various decision support systems by the execution of sets of queries against a standard database under controlled conditions.

TPC-H, QphH and $/QphH are trademarks of the TPC. For additional information on the TPC-H benchmark, please visit the Transaction Processing Performance Council’s Web site at http://www.tpc.org/

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

UltraSPARC® processors rise above commodity products

Microprocessors are often thought of as commodity components distinguished only by price. Yet Sun has proven that its open, noncommodity UltraSPARC processor chips deliver superior functionality that more than compensates for a slightly higher manufacturing cost.

If Sun had clung to a commodity-centric focus during the last 15 years, its customers might never have enjoyed the benefits of certain revolutionary advances in chip design, including reduced instruction set computer (RISC) and symmetrical multiprocessing (SMP) technology. For Sun, it’s always been about finding the right balance between innovation and economy.

That approach continues today, and it has never been more valuable. The UltraSPARC processor’s chip multithreading (CMT) technology is ready to boost performance up to 50 times over existing UltraSPARC processor chips. The UltraSPARC processor and CMT enable administrators to harness the power of dozens of servers onto a single blade. The management and maintenance savings are as phenomenal as the technology itself.

Commodity Does Not Equal Open

In the microprocessor realm, the terms “open” and “commodity” are often used carelessly in a manner that erroneously equates them. This sows confusion both in the industry and in the marketplace.

The term “open” refers to the capability of products and technologies to connect and interoperate with each other. Open interfaces, be they hardware or software, are generally publicly documented and based on an explicit or de facto industry standard. For example, the Internet depends on the propagation of the TCP/IP networking protocol.

The term “commodity” implies a common component that offers negligible feature differentiation from similar components. Thus, price becomes the most significant point of comparison. Thanks to economies of scale, a commodity generally promises lower prices. And of course, lower costs are generally good. Yet by definition, a commodity does not promise greater functionality.

The confusion between “open” and “commodity” might be thickest when people talk about Intel processors. Some call Intel’s chips “open” because they are ubiquitous on desktop systems. Yet Intel neither openly shares its design and hardware interfaces nor publishes these specifications. Intel’s chips are not open; they are commodities.

What Open Looks Like

The UltraSPARC processor architecture, on the other hand, is truly open. SPARC International is an independent body that oversees and promotes the technology’s evolution. The SPARC-V9 processor instruction set is in the public domain, as are entire UltraSPARC processor designs, which can be used by any company to create derivative products. This is what “open” really means.

Sun’s investment in UltraSPARC processors and the Solaris Operating Environment runs counter to the arguments of those who tout the benefits of commodity computing. The PC market, where commodity chips such as the Intel Pentium are anointed as standards, shapes their perspective.

Yet the forces that drive commodity microprocessors would not naturally have delivered advanced RISC, SMP, and CMT designs. Regarding the latter, most PC software is not multithreaded and cannot take advantage of a microprocessor capable of running dozens of threads. Also, 32-bit architectures cannot address sufficient memory to support large-scale CMT designs.

What Open Does

Sun has always built its products around open standards and with commodity components when possible. Yet there are several instances in which Sun has gone beyond a commodity-centric approach in order to spur innovation and create superior value for its customers. It is this perspective that drives Sun’s investment in UltraSPARC processors and the Solaris Operating Environment.

In 1986, Sun introduced the first UltraSPARC processor, which employed a revolutionary RISC architecture. Compared to the complex instruction set computer (CISC) design common in microprocessors of that era, the RISC-based UltraSPARC processor was an incredible breakthrough. RISC-based systems were up to seven times more powerful than CISC-based systems, at a lower cost.

The UltraSPARC processor’s next major wave of innovation, beginning in 1992, incorporated SMP, which enabled large shared-memory computers. Sun enhanced the basic UNIX threading model to create the Solaris Operating Environment, the highly threaded UNIX-based operating system so renowned today. Taken together, these advances delivered performance that was 50 to 100 times faster than uniprocessor systems.

The UltraSPARC processor is now entering its third wave of innovation, thanks again to Sun’s approach that considers microprocessors more than commodities. With CMT, our engineers have integrated the power of large-scale SMP onto a single piece of silicon. A single UltraSPARC processor chip can now process dozens of threads simultaneously, a quantum change in computer design.

The Solaris Operating Environment, unlike most desktop operating systems, can leverage CMT to run 32 or 64 simultaneous threads. For threaded applications, future UltraSPARC processors will deliver up to 50 times the performance of today’s fastest UltraSPARC processor, without a significantly higher cost-per-chip.

And just as important as speed, CMT enables administrators to consolidate the infrastructure of dozens of servers onto a single blade. Imagine the savings in administration, maintenance, power, cooling, and floor space.

Finding the Balance

Ultimately, the burning issue in the microprocessor market is not about openness versus commodification. It’s about finding the right balance between true innovation and economies of scale. Sun continues to be committed to open hardware and software interfaces built on emerging, defined, and de facto standards. As we develop technology for UltraSPARC processors and the Solaris Operating Environment, Sun customers can count on openness and, above all, superior value.

Solaris[tm], Solaris x86, Trusted Solaris and Sun Linux Platforms Unaffected by Today’s UNIX-related IP Lawsuit

Sun Microsystems, Inc. today confirmed with its customers and partners that it has licensing rights to UNIX code, on which the Solaris™ Operating System is based for both SPARC and recently available x86 systems. In light of SCO’s legal dispute with IBM over UNIX licensing rights, Sun announced it has absolutely no licensing issues with SCO today. Sun’s previous licensing agreements give Sun complete UNIX IP rights in relation to Sun’s operating systems. This makes the Solaris Operating System a safe choice for customers moving forward. With the Solaris multiplatform product line, customers can have a consistent Solaris environment from low-end x86 servers, up to hundreds of processors, in a SPARC mainframe-class system.

Sun confirms that:

About Solaris Operating System

The Solaris Operating System (Solaris OS) is the premier OS for the enterprise. With over 300 new features, the Solaris OS is the most scalable, available, manageable and secure services platform for the networked world. By focusing on industry standards, the Internet, innovation and integration, the Solaris platform delivers a documented lower cost of operation. The Solaris OS is the leading UNIX platform operating system with Sun servers owning 54 percent worldwide UNIX market share in shipments and 34 percent worldwide UNIX revenue share, according to Gartner Dataquest’s 3Q02 Servers Quarterly Statistics.

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 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.