Archive | 2003

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.

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.

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)

Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL) today underscored why so many customers run the Oracle Database for their decision-support needs by announcing a world-record TPC-H 1000GB (one terabyte) benchmark result for Oracle(r) Database 10g.

Running on a Fujitsu® PRIMEPOWER™ 2500 server with 64 SPARC64 processors on the Solaris 9 operating system, Oracle Database 10g achieved a record-breaking 34,492.5 QphH@1000GB at a price performance of (EUR)156/QphH@1000GB. Oracle Database 10g outperformed the best TPC-H one terabyte results from IBM DB2 by 54 percent and delivered more than six times better performance than Microsoft SQL Server(1).

Oracle’s newest database software, Oracle Database 10g, helps customers generate timely, analytical reports with higher levels of availability, scalability and reliability.

“With data volume and complexity on the rise, it has become increasingly important for customers to deploy data warehouse solutions that can accommodate growth and rapid return on investment,” said Richard Sarwal, vice president, server performance, Oracle Corporation. “Oracle Database 10g includes new automated management features that further Oracle’s reputation for providing the best database software available at lower total costs of ownership than competing databases.”

About Oracle Database 10g

Oracle Database 10g is designed to be effectively deployed on everything from small servers to the biggest SMP servers and from clusters to enterprise grids. It features automated tuning and management capabilities that make it easy and cost effective to operate. Its unique ability to natively manage all your data from traditional business information to OLAP, to XML documents, to spatial/location information make it the ideal choice to power Online Transaction Processing, Business Intelligence, Data Warehousing, and Content Management applications.

Availability

Oracle Database 10g is scheduled to be available by the end of the calendar year on all supported platforms. Members of Oracle Technology Network (OTN) will be able to download the new database software free of charge at http://otn.oracle.com. For more information, customers may contact Oracle Direct at 1-800-633-0753, or their Oracle sales representative.

About TPC-H

TPC-H is a decision support benchmark consisting of a suite of business oriented ad-hoc queries and concurrent data modifications. The performance metric is called the TPC-H Composite Query-per-Hour Performance Metric (QphH@Size) and reflects multiple aspects of the capability of the system to process queries. More information is available at http://www.tpc.org.

About Oracle

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

Trademarks

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Fujitsu is a registered trademark of Fujitsu Limited, and PRIMEPOWER is a trademark or registered trademark of Fujitsu Limited in the United States and other countries. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

As of October 16, 2003: Fujitsu PRIMEPOWER 2500, 34,492.5 QphH@1000GB (EUR)156/QphH@1000GB available 1/31/04. Unisys ES7000 Aries 420 Enterprise Server, 5,199.1 QphH@1000GB, $119.12/QphH@1000GB, available 10/15/03 (1). HP ProLiant DL760 x900-128P, 22,361.9 QphH@1000GB, $253/QphH@1000GB, available 6/20/02 (1).

Team to Deliver Volume Market Opportunities for ISVs, Partners and Customers With Industrial Strength, Affordable Platform on the AMD Opteron Processor

Sun And AMD to Offer New iForce Partner Program for the AMD Opteron Processor

With today’s announcement that Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) and AMD (NYSE: AMD) have formed an alliance to deliver a broad range of AMD Opteron[tm] processor-based systems, Sun also announced it plans to offer its Java Enterprise System on the AMD Opteron processor and is significantly extending the reach of its Solaris Operating System (OS) and leadership in the 64-bit space. The alliance intends to provide increased market opportunities for ISVs, OEMs, and channel partners by offering an industrial strength, affordable platform that has been fully optimized and tuned for the 64-bit AMD Opteron processor.

With the Sun Java Enterprise System and tools on the Solaris OS for the AMD Opteron processor, customers can also benefit from the seamless scalability from single systems to entire compute farms. Building on more than 20 years of OS innovation and a solid history with the 64-bit platform, the Solaris OS is built for 32- and 64- bit application co-existence, enabling maximized performance for existing 32-bit applications.

“Sun is in a unique competitive position against HP and IBM – who now find themselves lacking an operating system on either Intel or AMD Opteron, and fighting a systems war without weaponry” said Jonathan Schwartz, executive vice president, software at Sun. “Sun’s commitment to Solaris and the Java Enterprise System across multiple operating systems, shows us to be the only systems vendor offering a single system capable of running across multiple microprocessors – Intel, AMD Opteron and SPARC. With nearly 500,000 Solaris licenses delivered into the market this year alone, our focus on volume, scale and security stands as a beacon for HP and IBM customers facing a dead-end Unix, and Microsoft customers frustrated with security and fragility. They both now have a safe landing zone, based on open standards, and available on all industry standard hardware.”

As part of the alliance, Sun and AMD plan to collaborate to optimize the performance of the Solaris OS, the Java platform and developer tools for AMD Opteron processor-based systems. The Solaris OS on the 64-bit AMD Opteron processor platform is expected to be available in the first half of 2004 through Sun’s innovative early-access Software Express for Solaris program. Furthermore, Sun and AMD intend to work jointly with the Linux community to define and promote a 64-bit UNIX(r)-Linux Application Binary Interface (ABI) to enable interoperability. UNIX or Linux applications could run natively on any operating systems supporting this ABI.

“By running the current version of the Solaris OS on the AMD Opteron processor platform, we are experiencing substantial improvements in kernel performance for Solaris over other x86-based systems, “ said John Fowler, chief technology officer, software, Sun Microsystems. “With the Solaris OS running on the AMD Opteron processor, our customers and partners can take advantage of unique features such as containers delivering virtualization and high levels of security. Solaris has led the industry in proven military grade security built-in to the OS, and with Trusted Solaris OS, offering unmatched levels of privacy.”

By offering its innovative Java Enterprise System software stack for both the Solaris OS and Linux on the AMD Opteron processor, Sun can bring huge value-add to the AMD Opteron processor platform and thus create new possibilities for ISVs and resellers in new markets. Key components of the Java Enterprise System are identity, directory, portal and availability servers.

“Sun’s commitment to the AMD Opteron processor platform further catapults our growing ISV support for enterprise customers,” said Marty Seyer, vice president and general manager of the Microprocessor Business Unit at AMD. “This alliance can deliver what enterprise customers have been asking for – a simplified transition to 64-bit computing combined with a mature x86 architecture and a proven enterprise operating system.”

Sun and AMD plan to provide ISVs and developers with the information, tools, and community required to speed their solutions to market. The companies intend to collaborate to produce the Sun/AMD Developer Resource Kit which will include the Solaris OS, Linux support information, the AMD Developer Resource Kit, the Sun Java Studio (including C, C++, and Java development tools), Getting Started information, and access to the iForce Partner Program for the AMD Opteron processor. They also intend to include the Java System Studio 8 Compiler Collection for the Solaris OS, delivering complete language systems and tools designed to simplify software development. A seed unit program for ISVs is also planned. Information on the iForce Partner Program for the AMD Opteron processor, and the Sun/AMD Developer Resource Kit is available at http://www.sun.com/amd. Sun’s new AMD Opteron processor-based systems along with the robust offerings of Sun Java Software Systems with the Solaris OS or Linux can greatly strengthen the product portfolios of Sun’s iForce channel and reseller partners, extending their product lines for low-cost, high-performance computing and expanding their opportunities to compete in new markets, as well as exceeding customer satisfaction within their existing installed base.

About the Solaris Operating System

The Solaris OS, the #1 Enterprise-Class UNIX(R), redefines the operating system for SPARC(R), x86 and AMD Opteron processor-based systems as a services platform by combining traditional OS functionality with application services and identity management. The Solaris OS delivers the security, manageability and performance that IT professionals need to increase service levels and decrease costs and risk. The Solaris OS also serves as the foundation for the new Sun Java Enterprise System, an integrated, open, standards-based software system delivered using a new predictable approach for development, testing and servicing. It offers a simple business model that provides a single subscription and price for the software system, maintenance, support, consulting and education services. For more information please visit: http://www.sun.com/solaris

About Java Enterprise System

Serious software made simple, the Java Enterprise System seamlessly integrates award-winning and market-leading enterprise network applications and services at the heart of Web services. This complete system of standards-based software is delivered as one entity on a pre- integrated infrastructure. The Java System Portal Server, Java System Directory Server, Java System Identity Server, Java System Web Server, Java System Messaging Server, Java System Calendar Server, Java System Instant Messaging and Java System Application Server are key components of the Sun Java Enterprise System. For more information on the Java Enterprise System please visit: www.sun.com/software/javaenterprisesystem.

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

Safe-harbor

This press release contains projections or other forward-looking statements regarding future products, results or financial performance of Sun Microsystems, Inc., including statements regarding Sun’s plans to deliver a broad range of AMD Opteron processor-based systems; Sun’s plans to offer its Java Enterprise System on the AMD Opteron processor; that it is significantly extending the reach of its Solaris Operating System and leadership in the 64-bit space; Sun’s intent that the alliance will provide increased market opportunities for ISVs, OEMs and channel partners by offering an industrial strength, affordable platform that has been fully optimized and tuned for the 64-bit AMD Opteron processor; that customers can also benefit from the seamless scalability from single systems to entire compute farms; that the Solaris OS is built for 32- and 64-bit application co-existence enabling maximized performance for existing 32-bit applications; that customers now have a safe landing zone; that Sun and AMD plan to collaborate to optimize the performance of the Solaris OS, the Java platform and developer tools for AMD Opteron processor-based systems; that the 64-bit AMD Opteron processor platform is expected to be available in the first half of 2004 through Sun’s early-access Software Express for Solaris program;

Sun’s intent with AMD to work jointly with the Linux community to define and promote a 64-bit UNIX-Linux Application Binary Interface to enable interoperability; that we are experiencing substantial improvements in kernel performance for Solaris over other x86-based systems; that with the Solaris OS running on the AMD Opteron processors, our customers and partners can take advantage of unique features such as containers delivering virtualization and high levels of security; that Sun can bring huge value-add to the AMD Opteron processor platform and thus create new possibilities for ISVs and resellers in new markets; that Sun’s commitment to the AMD Opteron processor platform further catapults our growing ISV support for enterprise customers; that Sun plans with AMD to provide ISVs and developers with the information, tools, and community required to speed their solutions to market; that the companies intend to collaborate to produce the Sun/AMD Developer Resource Kit; that the parties intend to include the Java System Studio 8 Compiler Collection for the Solaris OS, delivering complete language systems and tools designed to simplify software development; that a seed unit program for ISVs is also planned; that Sun’s new AMD Opteron processor-based systems along with the robust offerings of Sun Java Software Systems with the Solaris OS or Linux can greatly strengthen the product portfolios of Sun’s iForce channel and reseller partners; and that partners will expand their opportunities to compete in new markets, as well as exceeding customer satisfaction within their installed base. Factors that might cause actual results to differ include risks associated with developing and marketing new products, lack of success in technological advancements, lack of acceptance of new products, adverse business conditions, failure to retain key employees, cancellation or delay of projects and in particular the cancellation or delay of the alliance with AMD, increased competition and continued adverse general economic conditions in the U.S. and internationally. These and other risks are detailed from time to time in Sun’s periodic reports that are filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Sun’s annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2003 and its quarterly report on Form 10-Q for the fiscal quarter ended September 28, 2003.

Price of Sun Blade 2000 Workstation Cut by 30 Percent; Sun Blade(TM) 150 Workstation Now Boasts Double the Memory, Storage Capacity, and a DVD-ROM Drive at No Additional Cost

Ever increasing its price-performance value in the 64-bit technical computing market, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced performance enhancements to the Sun Blade 150 workstation and a price cut to the Sun Blade 2000 workstation. The Sun Blade 150 workstation will feature double the memory and disk capacity as well as a DVD-ROM with no price increase. The higher-end Sun Blade 2000 workstation will be available for $3,000 less than the base configuration – a price reduction of 30 percent.

“We know that today’s technical computing customers need high-quality, high- performance systems at an affordable price,” says Fred Kohout, product line director, Workstations Product Group and Scalable Systems Group, Sun Microsystems. “Today’s move underscores Sun’s commitment to producing the most advanced, powerful and affordable workstations available. Sun is the number one manufacturer of technical computing 64-bit UNIX workstations in the world, and we plan to stay number one through continually refreshing the features and pricing of our workstation product portfolio.”

The refreshed Sun Blade 150 workstation will now offer up to two internal 80 gigabytes (GB) of 7200-RPM EIDE hard drives to provide high internal storage capacity. The base memory will double to 256 megabytes (MB) of RAM for the small configuration and 512 MB for the medium configuration. Additionally, the new Sun Blade 150 workstation will come standard with a DVD-ROM and optional 48x CD read/write option. These performance enhancements offer 83 percent better price/SPECint performance and 81 percent better price/SPECfp performance than IBM’s RS/6000 44P model 170.

The Sun Blade 2000 workstation price has been slashed by $3,000, dropping from $9,995 to $6,995 U.S. for the base configuration. Targeted at the high-end technical computing market, the Sun Blade 2000 sports up to two 1.2 GHz UltraSPARC III processors, eight MB of Level 2 cache per CPU and a maximum of eight GB of RAM.

With this latest price cut, the Sun Blade 2000 workstation now offers 67 percent better price/SPECint performance and 73 percent better price/SPECfp performance than the comperable IBM pSeries 630 model 6E4. Additionally, the Sun Blade 2000 supports the Sun XVR-100, Sun XVR-500, Sun XVR-1000 and Sun XVR-1200 graphics accelerators, allowing many combinations of powerful graphics solutions such as dual displays for graphics-intensive use or quad displays for vertical markets.

As with all Sun workstations, the Sun Blade 150 and the Sun Blade 2000 workstations run the powerful 64-bit Solaris Operating Environment and are 100 percent binary compatible across the Sun portfolio. The performance enhanced Sun Blade 150 workstation will be available to customers on November 20, 2003. The newly priced Sun Blade 2000 is available now.

More information on these products can be found at: http://www.sun.com/desktop/products/ws.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, and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries.

Benchmark Demonstrates Strong Performance to Help Supply Chain Planners Deal with Risk and Uncertainty of Demand Over High Inventory Costs ~ Underscores Reasons Why SPARC/Solaris is a Preferred Platform for i2 SPM

Sun Microsystems announced today a benchmark configuration with i2 Technologies, Inc. (OTC: ITWO) running i2 Service and Parts Management (SPM) on the Sun Fire 6800 midframe server. Testing i2 SPM on the bedrock of Sun technology –the Solaris Operating System and UltraSPARC[r] architecture– engineers simulated a time-phased forecast, inventory and replenishment plan for 10.1 million part locations, and generated an end-to-end plan over a 90-day horizon in one hour, 31 minutes, with peak planning throughput recorded at two-point-seven billion part location periods per hour. Today’s announcement means a typical service supply chain business, channelling tens of thousands of items (SKUs) to hundreds of locations, can improve forecast accuracy, and optimize inventory required to meet customer demand and service level agreements.

i2 Service and Parts Management, a web-based solution, is designed to enable companies to maximize the utilization of parts, budgets and facilities to reach key performance objectives such as high customer service, low operating costs, improved margins and overall market leadership. Leveraging the solution on the Solaris OS can provide high availability and scalability, so businesses can have peace-of-mind knowing the right parts are on hand in the right location at the right time. To accomplish this task, i2 SPM utilizes business logic specific to the service and aftermarket parts industry with a three-tiered workflow:

1. Forecasting – i2 SPM can forecast demand for spare parts based on historical data, equipment usage and failure rates;
2. Inventory Planning – i2 SPM can set target inventory levels for service parts based on cost, parts criticality and budgetary constraints; and,
3. Replenishment Planning – i2 SPM can generate replenishment plans that consider the forecast for repairable and returned parts, as well as the possibility of substituting alternate parts.

Several real-world scenarios, ranging from two million to 10 million part locations, were tested running i2 Service and Parts Management v6.0.3 on two Sun Fire 6800 midframe servers with 24 x 1050 MHz CPU power and, Sun StorEdge T3 arrays (with 9 x 72 GB drives per array). The complete planning process (including forecasting, inventory and replenishment planning) was accomplished in one hour, 31 minutes. Significantly, the replenishment planning process was successfully completed within 20 minutes with only 24 CPUs, and helps demonstrate the i2 SPM capabilities for timely solving large scale service parts and retail replenishment planning problems running on the SPARC/Solaris platform.

The benchmark was generated in Sun’s Newark, Calif., Customer Benchmark Center to emulate typical supply planning needs of the world’s largest distribution and parts managments centers. Benchmark results can be highly influential as customers weigh price and performance — along with trust, reliability and ROI — when selecting mission critical solutions to power their business.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Since its inception in 1982, a singular vision — “The Network Is The Computer” — has propelled Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) to its position as a leading provider of industrial-strength hardware, software and services that make the Net work. Sun can be found in more than 100 countries and on the World Wide Web at http://sun.com

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

“Crystal” Anniversary Highlighted with History of Innovation and Future Technologies

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) and Texas Instruments, Inc. (NYSE: TXN) today announced their 15-year anniversary by highlighting the milestones and future technologies that have made Sun and TI world leaders in processor innovation. Sun and TI’s 15-year alliance, one of the longest in the technology industry, coincides with the announcement of UltraSPARC(r) IV by Sun and a strained silicon process by TI – two of the many achievements made possible by the partnership.

“The longevity of the Sun/TI alliance and the work it has produced is a testament to the dedication and hard work of the people involved,” said Dr. David Yen, executive vice president, Processor and Network Products group, Sun Microsystems. “This symbiotic relationship has allowed both companies to focus their energy on what they do best. For TI, it is developing and manufacturing state-of-the-art process technology and for Sun, it is designing and marketing cutting-edge processors.”

Both companies reap significant business benefits from the strategic agreement. TI is able to apply its learnings in 64-bit manufacturing to the development of high-speed I/O ASICs, digital signal processors (DSPs) and DSP-based product lines. All the while, Sun is allowed the opportunity to remain focused on its core competency of designing leading-edge systems without having to build and maintain silicon wafer fabrication facilities.

“This is truly a synergistic relationship for Sun and TI,” adds Hunter Ward, Enterprise Products business manager and SPARC engineering manager at TI. “Sun drives our leading-edge process technology from a performance perspective, which enhances our high-performance ASIC business and waterfalls down into our other products over time. Concurrently, we share with Sun lessons learned in producing our very high-volume, low-cost, low-power DSP products.”

The Sun/TI relationship, forged in 1988, has led to the design and fabrication of six generations of SPARC(r) processors and several industry firsts, including the first 64-bit microprocessor produced with the 130 nanometer (nm) process. Additionally, Sun and TI are jointly enabling the future of Throughput Computing, Sun’s breakthrough strategy for its UltraSPARC roadmap.

Sun/TI partnership milestones:

• 1988 – Sun/TI relationship founded
• 1992 – Delivery of SuperSPARC(r) and MicroSPARC(r) 1
• 1994 – Delivery of SuperSPARC II
• 1995 – Delivery of UltraSPARC I (first 64 bit SPARC processor)
• 1997 – Delivery of UltraSPARC II (72-way support)
• 2000 – UltraSPARC III (106-way support)
• 2001 – Copper UltraSPARC III
• 2002 – UltraSPARC III (industry’s first 64-bit in 130 nm)
• 2003 – First 64-bit 90 nm process samples

About Texas Instruments

Texas Instruments Incorporated is the world leader in digital signal processing and analog technologies, the semiconductor engines of the Internet age. In addition to Semiconductor, the company’s businesses also include Sensors & Controls, and Educational & Productivity Solutions. TI is headquartered in Dallas, Texas, and has manufacturing or sales operations in more than 25 countries.

Texas Instruments is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol TXN. More information is located on the World Wide Web at www.ti.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, and The Network is the Comptuer 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.

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced that quarter-to-quarter (Q/Q), Sun outperformed the overall UNIX server market in both unit and vendor revenue growth, and maintained its position as the worldwide leader in both categories, according to the 2Q03 Worldwide Server Database by Gartner Dataquest released today. The company’s performance also resulted in growth in the overall OS category.

“This year we’ve taken steps to realign our product mix and deliver the integrated, open, low-cost solutions that customers are demanding,” said Larry Singer, Sun’s senior vice president, global market strategies. “This is paying off with a positive movement over the past six months. And with the new solutions we’ll announce at next week’s Sun Network conference in San Francisco, Sun will continue along the path of delivering innovative products that reduce customer cost and complexity.”

Other specific performance metrics for Sun include:

• Quarter-to-quarter (Q/Q), Sun outperformed the overall UNIX server market in both units shipped and revenues.
• In both the EMEA and APAC geographies, Sun equaled the highest Q/Q UNIX server revenue market share gains.
• In the high-end ($500K and over) UNIX server space, Sun outperformed both HP and IBM on a Q/Q revenue basis.
• Sun maintained its our number one position in both shipments and revenue in the $25K to $100K All OS category

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, Solaris and Sun Fire 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 US and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.