Archive | 2005

At a press conference today, NEC Corporation and Sun Microsystems (Nasdaq:SUNW) today announced an agreement to expand the strategic alliance between the two firms. This expanded alliance plans to create new system solutions, incorporating technology and products from both companies that are scheduled to be made available in Japan and globally.

The strategic alliance will cover a broad range of areas between the two companies including an expansion of the joint systems integration business relationship, development of secure voice and data solutions and enhanced collaboration in the development of middleware software. “NEC started OEMing Sun products in 2000, since then we have continued to broadly develop our partnership,” said Akinobu Kanasugi, president, NEC. “Today’s announcement is about expanding this product based partnership into a strategic systems integration collaboration targeting the global market by developing solutions based on IT and network technologies from both companies.” “Today the Sun and NEC relationship has reached a new level,” said Scott McNealy, Chairman and CEO, Sun Microsystems. “Our visions have always been aligned and now we can say that our products and services offerings are more complimentary than ever, a synergistic partnership from ASICS at the chip level to the middleware layer all the way through systems integration. Customers throughout the world are experiencing the benefits of our joint solutions.”

Key elements of the new alliance include:

• An expanded set of systems integration offerings that the two companies plan to provide including standards-based, highly scalable, secure, mission critical offerings targeting mobile phone carriers and network markets such as telecommunications.
• Plans for both companies to expand support for NEC’s Multimedia Information Platform (NEMIP) solution based on Sun’s Solaris Operating System (OS) platform in the global market including Asia and Europe.
• NEC is increasing its systems integration capability dedicated to the Solaris operating environment in addition to other platform environments and targeting multi-vendor implementations such as server consolidation. Furthermore, NEC will deploy its Open Mission Critical System (OMCS) technology on Sun’s Solaris platform in Japan and other countries.
• Sun is expanding its support structure both in Japan and the United States in order to support this systems integration business expansion.
• Both companies are combining NEC’s IP telephony product, UNIVERGE/SV 7000, and Sun’s Sun Ray ultra-thin client technology into secure solutions.
• NEC is using this architecture as a key component of its customer relationship management (CRM) solutions for next-generation call centers.
• The first reference site for this new solution is Plala Networks, which started its operations in March. This Next Generation Contact Center is expected to be the biggest in Asia with more than 1,000 seats. Sun and NEC plan to jointly promote this solution worldwide as a Sun Ray-based reference platform for joint customers.
• Sun and NEC are jointly investigating technology collaboration for next-generation client architecture definitions for future mobility and security clients based on Sun Ray ultra-thin client and NEC network technology.
• NEC and Sun have concluded integration test and quality verification for key components of their middleware stacks, the NEC “VALUMOware” and Sun Java Enterprise System. NEC’s “WebSAM MCOperation” and “DiosaGlobe MCOne” has been integrated with the Sun Java Enterprise System for operations management and operating platform solutions.
• NEC and Sun have integrated the Sun Java System Access Manager and the Sun Java System Identity Manager software with the NEC Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) products as a systems integration solution for the identity market.
• Both companies are investigating further technology collaboration in the areas of autonomic computing and Web services.
• Both companies intend to expand these middleware collaborations from the Solaris Operating System running on UltraSPARC(R) microprocessors to include the Solaris Operating System on the x86 and x64 platforms.

In order to demonstrate and accelerate the above initiatives, both companies are establishing joint solution teams to execute proof of concepts for customer requirements at NEC’s iBest Solution Center in Mita, Japan, the NEC Broadband Solution Center in Shinagawa, Japan and the Sun iForce (SM) Center in Yoga, Japan. Sun and NEC have collaborated for years, with NEC integrating thousands of systems using the Solaris Operating System over the past five years. In addition, NEC Electronics Ltd. provides system level semiconductor products for Sun.

About NEC Corporation

NEC Corporation (Nasdaq: NIPNY) (FTSE: 6701q.l) is one of the world’s leading providers of Internet, broadband network and enterprise business solutions dedicated to meeting the specialized needs of its diverse and global base of customers. Ranked as one of the world’s top patent-producing companies, NEC delivers tailored solutions in the key fields of computer, networking and electron devices, by integrating its technical strengths in IT and Networks, and by providing advanced semiconductor solutions through NEC Electronics Corporation. The NEC Group employs more than 140,000 people worldwide and had net sales of 4,906 billion yen (approx. $47 billion) in the fiscal year ended March 2004. For additional information, please visit the NEC home page at: http://www.nec.com.

NEC’s Multimedia Information Platform (NEMIP) is a mobile communications platform providing Mail, Web Portal, Ring Tones and other type of multimedia services . NEMIP is a proven solution with implementations in more than 8 major mobile carriers.

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 Microsystems K.K. is the Japanese corporation, 100% subsidiary of US headquarters and was established in 1986.

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris, Java, , iForce, Sun Ray ,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’s Leadership on Wall Street Paying Big Dividends

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: SUNW) today announced that New York-based JPMorgan, a leader in financial services, has chosen to work with Sun on a range of advanced IT projects, including grid computing, data archiving and virtualized data center solutions. Sun and JPMorgan will jointly develop several of these projects.

JPMorgan’s Investment Bank Technology team has chosen to develop applications using Solaris 10 Operating System (OS), Sun’s flagship operating system. Solaris 10 OS is the industry’s most robust operating system, delivering carrier-grade reliability and scalability, and military-grade security.

“JPMorgan is pleased to be working closely with Sun in implementing their newest technologies, including Solaris 10 OS,” said Adrian Kunzle, vice president and global co-head of Investment Bank Technology Architecture.

“The financial services industry is one of the most demanding on earth. Performance, reliability and security are not only business imperatives, but competitive differentiators,” said Jonathan Schwartz, president and COO, Sun Microsystems. “Working hand-in-hand with JPMorgan is absolutely critical to our success in the marketplace, and this alliance is the tip of the iceberg of what is to come. One need only look at the one million Solaris 10 OS licenses issued in a two-month period and the thousands of ISVs committing support, to see that our customers are winning by leveraging Sun’s products.”

The applications, which are now in testing and development, will utilize the multi-platform power of Solaris 10 OS on both SPARC(r) and x64 systems. Full ISV portfolio support to port applications to Solaris OS on x86 systems will also be available.

Select Projects Being Co-Developed by Sun and JPMorgan

Sun and JPMorgan are now involved in co-development activities that include work on data archiving and virtualized data center solutions. Sun will also join JPMorgan’s existing grid computing initiative. JPMorgan will be leveraging Sun’s Client Solutions group and other Sun groups for this expertise.

Sun’s Pilot Strategy Bears Fruit

In New York, London and Hong Kong the financial services firm has been conducting pilots with Sun over the last year, testing a variety of Sun products, including Solaris 10 OS and Sun’s new servers. The pilots include utility computing, provisioning and a trading data archive for use by JPMorgan and their clients.

JP Morgan has long used IT as its competitive weapon to gain market advantage. It has also been a Sun customer for over 20 years, and was an early adopter of Sun technology on Wall Street.

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

Sun Sets New World Record Results in SPEC OMPM2001 and SPEC JBB2000 Benchmarks

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq:SUNW) today announced the results of the latest series of benchmark tests using Sun’s Solaris 10 Operating System (OS), the Sun Studio 10 software and the highest performing Sun Fire servers. The company delivered world record results on the industry-standard SPEC OMPM2001 and SPEC JBB2000 benchmarks, further demonstrating the commitment to extend performance to the leading edge for the entire product line. A complete list of Solaris 10 benchmark records is located on the web at: http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/benchmarks.xml.

Sun Studio 10 Software: A Proven Track Record for Top Performance

Today Sun announced the new world record SPEC OMPM2001 results in the two- and four-thread categories, further showcasing the power of the Sun Studio 10 software and Solaris 10 OS duo coupled with the latest Sun Fire servers, which provide excellent deployment platforms for a number of high-performance and compute-intensive applications. For instance, the Sun Fire V40z server in a four CPU configuration, produced a peak result of 12,434, beating the 8,694 score reported with SuSe Linux and the leading commercially available compiler, by up to 43 percent(1).

Additionally, the latest performance advances in the Java 2 Platform Standard Edition (J2SE 5.0), which was compiled using Sun Studio 10 software, allow Sun to claim a new world record on the Sun Fire V40z server — the four-way, 64-bit SPEC JBB2000 result. The Sun Fire V40z server crossed the 110,000 JBB operations per second (JBBops/s) mark and set a new high watermark score of 116,142 JBBops/s. The newest record on the SPEC JBB2000 benchmark, which measures the implementation of the Java Virtual Machine, as well as the performance of the underlying operating system and the scalability of the system’s processors and memory, clearly demonstrates that Solaris 10 can deliver better results when used in combination with top-performing servers from Sun.

Since their introduction, Sun’s range of x64 systems with the AMD Opteron processors continue to outperform comparably configured IBM and HP servers equipped with Power5 and Alpha processors, respectively. The Sun Fire V40z server, in a two-way configuration(2), outruns the two-way Power5-based IBM eServer OpenPower 710 server by more than 32 percent using half the number of parallel threads(3) and in a four-way configuration it beats the HP AlphaServer GS1280 7/1300 by up to 51 percent(4).

Most importantly, Sun’s customers now can reap the performance benefits of the Sun Studio 10 software compiler, which provided an 11 percent performance boost on the same hardware configuration, when compared with the previous top SPECompM2001 result obtained under Linux using the third-party, award-winning compiler suite(5).

The SPEC OMPM2001 benchmark is a test of the performance of 11 High Performance Computing (HPC) applications. All C and FORTRAN applications in this suite use the OpenMP programming model and were compiled using the Sun Studio 10 software.

OpenMP is a specification for a set of compiler directives, library routines and environment variables that can be used to specify shared memory parallelism in FORTRAN and C/C++ programs. In addition to the parallelization controls, the programmer also has to declare the scope of many of the variables used in a parallel region.

Dieter an Mey, high-performance computing team lead at RWTH Aachen University, has reported that this variable scoping is generally the most tedious and error-prone aspect of using OpenMP to parallelize programs. an Mey’s team worked with Sun to add a unique autoscoping extension to Sun Studio 10’s FORTRAN compiler. With the Sun Studio 10 product, FORTRAN developers can now further increase their productivity by asking the compiler to utilize data dependence analysis to automatically determine the scope of their variables within parallel regions.

Sun Microsystems is a corporate sponsor of IWOMP 2005, the First International Workshop on OpenMP to be held in Eugene, Oregon on June 1-4, 2005. On the Net: http://www.nic.uoregon.edu/iwomp2005/.

About the Sun Studio 10 Environment

The Sun Studio 10 software — now available in English, Japanese and Simplified Chinese — helps deliver outstanding performance when developing C, C++ and FORTRAN applications for the Solaris 10 OS. The product provides a comprehensive, productive environment for developing scalable 32- and 64-bit applications on Sun’s newest UltraSPARC(R), Intel and AMD processor-based systems. An enhanced graphical user interface increases ease-of-use, reduces turnaround time for fixes and delivers greater debugging productivity — plus the world’s first debugger to seamlessly debug applications comprised of FORTRAN, C, C++ and Java programming language source code.

Pricing and Availability

Sun Studio 10 software is priced at $2,995 (USD) for a new license or $1,000 (USD) for an upgrade from a previous version or other commercially available competitive products. (U.S. List price. All prices quoted are in U.S. Dollars.) Discounted pricing is available for multi-RTU (right to use) licenses and University ScholarPacks. Developers using prior versions of Forte(TM) software and Sun Studio products can reap the benefits of their binary compatibility, smoothing the transition of application development from these prior versions to Sun Studio 10 software. The product is available for download at http://www.sun.com/software/products/studio.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

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

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Solaris, Java, J2SE, Sun Fire, Forte, and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, 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.

SPEC and the benchmark names SPEComp and SPECjbb are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Competitive benchmark results reflect data published as of 03/21/05. For the latest benchmark results, visit http://www.spec.org/. The 2-way and 2 CPU systems have two cores. The 4-way and 4 CPU systems have four cores. 64-bit systems have 64-bit capable implementation of the operating system and Java Virtual Machine. All new results have been submitted to SPEC.

(1)The Sun Fire V40z server (4xAMD Opteron Model 852, Solaris 10, Sun Studio 10 compiler): SPECompM2001 – 12,434 (4 cores, 4 chips, 4 threads). The Sun Fire V40z server (4xAMD Opteron Model 850, SuSe Linux 9, PGI compiler): SPECompM2001 – 8,694 (4 cores, 4 chips, 4 threads)

(5)The Sun Fire V40z server (4xAMD Opteron Model 852, Solaris 10, Sun Studio 10 compiler): SPECompM2001 – 12,434 (4 cores, 4 chips, 4 threads). The Sun Fire V40z server (4xAMD Opteron Model 852, SLES 9, PathScale compiler): SPECompM2001 – 11,223 (4 cores, 4 chips, 4 threads)

Solaris 10 Sets Fourteen New World-Record Benchmarks

Underscoring the tremendous demand for the most-advanced operating system in the industry, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced that it has distributed more than one million registered licenses for the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS) since Jan. 31, when the software became available on Sun’s Web site. Sun also announced that the Solaris 10 OS has set fourteen world-record benchmarks in this same timeframe and demonstrated application performance improvements greater than 50 times that of previous versions of Solaris.

“The interest in Solaris 10 has exceeded our highest expectations – this is a significant milestone for Sun,” said Tom Goguen, vice president, Operating Platforms Group, Sun Microsystems. “We’re seeing approximately one download per second and our Solaris 10 customers and partners are achieving huge performance gains when leveraging powerful new features like Dynamic Tracing and Containers.”

Performance Continues To Spur Demand For Solaris 10

Earning 14 world-record performance results to date, Solaris 10 is delivering breakthrough performance and price/performance for customers across vertical market segments from financial services to telecommunications. With technology advances such as enhancements to the network stack and special optimizations for multithreaded SPARC(R) processors and x64/x86 architectures, Solaris 10 is powering enterprise applications at record speeds on Sun Fire systems and Sun Java Workstations.

The newest 2-way 64-bit Java Virtual Machine (JVM) world record on the SPECjbb2000 benchmark, which measures the implementation of the JVM software, as well as the performance of the underlying operating system and the scalability of the system’s processors and memory, demonstrates that Solaris 10 can deliver better results than Linux. The SPECjbb2000 testing was performed on a Sun Fire V20z server, one of a range of systems available from Sun which are powered by the latest AMD Opteron processors, Model 252 with Direct Connect Architecture.(1) The results were achieved using the new Sun Studio 10 compiler software, which also delivers outstanding performance when developing C, C++ and FORTRAN applications for Solaris 10.

Additionally, Sun and BEA achieved new world record performance of 4220.39 TOPS@DualNode on the industry-standard SPECjAppServer2002 benchmark. This result on the powerful 24-way Sun Fire E6900 servers with UltraSPARC IV 1.2GHz processors delivered more than twice the performance of the proprietary HP Itanium result in this category. The SPECjAppServer benchmark is designed to test Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) that is often used as a standard platform for development of portable, scalable, multi-tier enterprise applications. Additional Solaris 10 benchmarks can be viewed at sun.com/solaris/benchmarks.(1)

Additional Solaris 10 benchmarks can be viewed on the Net: www.sun.com/solaris/benchmarks

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

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

Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun Logo, Solaris, Sun Fire, Java, JVM,and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

(1) SPEC(r), SPECjbb(r), & SPECjAppServer are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Results published on www.spec.org as of 03/16/05. Visit www.spec.org/osg/jbb2000 for latest results. Sun Fire V20z server (2-way AMD Opteron processors Model 252, SLES9): 63743 JBBops/s. Sun Fire V20z server (2-way AMD Opteron processors Model 252, Solaris 10): 65840 JBBops/s SPECjAppServer2002 DualNode category: 2 Sun Fire E6900, each 24 1.2 GHz UltraSPARC IV, 4220.39 TOPS@DualNode, $834.98 US$/TOPS@DualNode. 2 HP Rx4640, each 4 1.6 GHz Itanium 2, 1710.23 TOPS@DualNode, $115.73 US$/TOPS@DualNode. For the latest results see http://www.spec.org/jAppServer2002/results/

Lenovo, Ulticom, Veraz Networks, VoiceGenie Lead List of Global Partners Building Next Gen Telecommunications Systems

Underscoring its leadership in the telecommunications industry, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced that 34 Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) have agreed to port a range of telecom applications to the Solaris 10 Operating System (OS). Solaris 10 will enable the 34 partners, including Lenovo, Ulticom, Veraz Networks, VoiceGenie and leading companies from around the globe, to deliver software and systems that enable carriers to improve network operations environments, reduce costs and quickly implement new secure IP-based services.

“With in-kernel support for the Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), and unique features such as Solaris Containers and Predictive Self-Healing, Solaris 10 is the ideal platform for telecoms applications,” said Tom Goguen, Vice President, Operating Platforms Group, Sun Microsystems, Inc. “Today we welcome 34 partners who are building next generation systems.”

Sun has a strong and successful history in the telecommunications industry and with Solaris 10, carriers, service providers and network equipment providers can benefit from dramatic improvements in performance and security, and increased service levels. Additionally, Solaris 10 supports current IPv6 specifications and APIs, paving the way for the development of next generation IP-based services. Partners and customers will also benefit from increased platform choice as Solaris 10 supports a broad range of SPARC(R) and x86/x64 processor-based systems. Sun platforms and Solaris 10 offer great performance for the many types of workloads important to the Telco industry. In a recent SPECjAppServer(TM) 2002 benchmark, Sun and BEA achieved new world record performance of 4220.39 TOPS@DualNode on the powerful 24-way Sun Fire(TM) E6900 servers with UltraSPARC(R) IV 1.2GHz processors. The SPECjAppserver benchmark is designed to test Java(TM) 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE(TM)) that is often used as a standard platform for development of portable, scalable, multi-tier enterprise applications. Additional Solaris 10 benchmarks can be viewed at www.sun.com/solaris/benchmarks.(1)

At CTIA Wireless 2005, Sun announced agreements with 34 telecom partners to support Solaris 10, including Adax, Appium, AsiaInfo, BOCO, Cntomorrow, DigitalChina, Flextronics Software Systems (FSS), Hurray, Infozech, JnetX, Lenovo, Longshine, Metarnet, Mpathix, Neusoft, Object Computing, Inc., Open Cloud, Poson, Pronto Networks, Runway, Shanghai Ideal, Sleepycat Software, Sures, Syndesis, TransNexus, Ubiquity, Ulticom, Veraz Networks, VoiceGenie, Wayout, Xbell, ZCXC, Zhongyin-Unihub and Zznode. These partners provide solutions that include VoIP, multimedia VPN, Web-based collaboration, business operation support systems (BOSS), customer relationship management (CRM), voice recognition, and more. Since the launch of Solaris 10 in November 2004, more than 500 partners have joined Sun’s “10 Moves Ahead” partner initiative and are porting more than 800 applications to Solaris 10. Information on Sun’s partner program is available at http://sun.com/partners/10moves.

Adax

“Sun and Adax share a vision for the telecom market that encompasses convergence and the creation and delivery of new IP-based services. Combined, Sun’s new Solaris 10 OS and Adax’s superior SS7/IP signaling solutions create a scalable platform for building revenue-generating services,” said Barry Zuckerman, CEO, Adax, Inc.

Infozech

“By deploying our Rating Engine product, i-Rater on Solaris 10, we will help customers manage their applications independently, control resource utilization based on their business needs, isolate faults and ensure security between multiple applications,” said Ankur Lal, CEO, Infozech. “That’s our promise to the market, and Solaris 10 helps us deliver.”

Ulticom

“Ulticom is pleased to offer carrier-grade SS7, SIGTRAN and SIP signaling with our Signalware platform on Solaris 10. Ulticom has had a long history of providing carrier-grade signaling on the telco industry-leading Solaris operating system. Solaris 10 raises the bar in terms of performance and reliability,” said Osman Duman, Vice President of Marketing, Ulticom.

Veraz Networks

“Veraz and Sun have long held a shared philosophy of open standards that is highlighted by Solaris 10’s new integrated support for SCTP and SIP open standard Telco IP protocols. Sun dominates the market for carrier-grade telecommunications infrastructure equipment due to its outstanding reputation for reliability,” said R. Paul Singh, Vice President of Business Development, Veraz Networks.

Join Sun Microsystems at CTIA Wireless (Booth #1370) to hear from customers and partners that are benefiting from telecom industry solutions provided by Sun. Visit our online press kit (http://www.sun.com/aboutsun/media/presskits/ctia2005/index.html) to view all press release, presentation schedules, white papers and product backgrounders. To learn more about the Solaris 10 OS for the telecommunications industry, visit: www.sun.com/solutions/landing/industry/telecom.xml.

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, Solari, Java, J2EE, and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the US and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

(1) SPEC and the benchmark names SPECjAppServer, SPECjbb are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Competitive benchmark results reflect data published as of 03/01/05. For the latest benchmark results, visit http://www.spec.org/.

Over 2x Application Throughput and 34 Percent Better Price/performance on Solaris Servers on UltraSPARC Platform

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq:SUNW) today reinforced its commitment to the SPARC platform, Solaris Operating System (OS) and optimizing its systems to run multithreaded, data-centric workloads by boosting performance across its popular UltraSPARC IV processor-based server family. The new UltraSPARC IV 1.35 GHz processor, available immediately, gives customers over 2x the throughput(i) at 34 percent better price/performance when compared to the fastest UltraSPARC III systems, and can be mixed and matched with previous UltraSPARC III and UltraSPARC IV processors(ii). This enables several primary customer benefits: enhanced price/performance significantly increases the product’s value proposition, while the versatile architecture helps deliver investment protection, significant deployment agility and improved risk management.

Sun also unveiled a new world-record benchmark the enhanced platform has already achieved, further demonstrating the best-in-class results made possible by the combination of the new 1.35 GHz processor and the leading Solaris OS. Sun has unmatched binary compatibility and there are over 8,000 Solaris applications. Solaris 10 delivers unparalleled availability, performance and security – all at an extremely competitive price.

“Sun reinforces its vision to create the next-generation datacenter providing customers with technology innovation and the best price/performance through its UltraSPARC processor-based servers,” said Sun’s David Yen, executive vice president, Scalable Systems. “Today’s announcement is further evidence of Sun’s commitment to the Solaris OS for SPARC platform roadmap to deliver throughput computing to optimize customer workloads and increase application performance in the datacenter. Each of the upgraded servers will be compatible with the latest version of Solaris in order to take full advantage of all its new features and functionality while supporting existing versions to ensure customer’s investments are protected.”

Double the Throughput and 34 Percent Better Price/Performance

Sun’s UltraSPARC IV 1.35 GHz processor upgrade gives customers enhanced throughput computing power on the Sun Fire V490, V890, Sun Enterprise 2900, 4900, 6900, 20000 and 25000 servers. These UltraSPARC IV and Solaris OS-based systems deliver Chip Multithreading Technology (CMT), driving over double the application throughput and 34 percent better price/performance in the same physical footprint as its predecessors, which helps reduce the cost and complexity of doing business for Sun’s customers. In conjunction with Solaris OS, Sun’s servers for the UltraSPARC platform deliver higher performance, utilization, security and RAS (reliability, availability and serviceability) allowing IT groups to better meet Service Level Agreements. Full binary and application compatibility allows risk reduction as customers deploy new applications, services and infrastructure.

UltraSPARC IV processor-based Sun Fire mid-range servers deliver more than 7x the performance of UltraSPARC II servers(i), while offering greater scalability, RAS and investment protection with lower operating costs. For customers using UltraSPARC II technology, Sun is offering double trade-in values for upgrades to UltraSPARC IV technology through its Sun Upgrade Advantage Program. For more information, please visit http://sun.com/ibb/promos/USIVpromo.html.

Record-Setting Benchmark Proves Superior Performance

The Sun Fire V890 server, based on the UltraSPARC IV 1.35 GHz platform, outperforms IBM Power5 on the Lotus Domino R6iNotes(iii) benchmark in users per processor.

Through the world record Lotus Domino R6iNotes benchmark, the Sun Fire V890 server delivers 16.5 percent more users per processor than proprietary IBM Power5 systems and the best overall price/performance in the mid-range class of servers.(iv) In addition, the UltraSPARC IV-based system delivers the leading number of users per processor for servers equipped with more than 2 processors.

The new 1.35GHz UltraSPARC IV processors can be mixed and matched with 1.05GHz and 1.2GHz UltraSPARC IV processor-based servers and UltraSPARC III processor-based Sun Fire servers. All processors run at their rated speeds, further enabling customers to take advantage of higher performance while increasing agility and efficiency.(v)

For more information on the new 1.35GHz UltraSPARC IV processors and world record performance benchmarks, visit www.sun.com/servers/midrange and www.sun.com/servers/highend.

About Sun Microsystems, Inc.

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

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

(1) The Sun Fire E6900 server achieved a SPECint_rate2000 of 364 and the Sun Fire 6800 server achieved a SPECint_rate2000 of 180. The Sun Fire V890 server achieved a SPECfp_rate2000 of 161 and the 8 processor Sun Enterprise 4500 server achieved a SPECfp_rate2000 of 20.9. SPEC and the benchmark names SPECint and SPECfp are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. Results stated above reflect results published on www.spec.org as of 02/17/05. Sun Fire V890/E6900 server results submitted to SPEC for review on 02/17/05. For the latest SPEC CPU2000 benchmark results, visit http://www.spec.org/cpu2000/results/.

(5) Mixed CPU support offered on the Sun Fire V1280, 4800, 6800, 12K, 15K, E2900, E4900, E6900, E20K, E25K servers.

Adds world’s highest performing processors from AMD for 2- and 4- way x64 systems outperforming IBM, HP and Dell; Expands operating systems (OS) choice with new SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9; Demonstrates dual-core technology

Combined with Solaris OS and Java Technology, Netra 440 Servers Provide Reliable, Scalable Delivery of Next-Generation Telecom Services

Running on the UltraSPARC IIIi with carrier-grade Solaris Operating System and Sun Java Enterprise Systems technologies, the upgraded Netra 440 server can enable the delivery of next-generation, high-bandwidth, telecom infrastructure applications such as 3G wireless and broadband services. This upgrade builds upon Sun’s leadership in the telecom data server market, as Sun currently offers the most complete family of highly-reliable, scalable NEBS Level 3 certified rack servers on the market today.

“With the increase in bandwidth intensive applications driving the wireless and broadband markets, network equipment providers require a cost-effective scalable delivery platform,” said Raju Penumatcha, VP Netra Systems and Networking (NSN), Sun Microsystems.. “The upgrade to the Netra 440 server will provide our customers the performance, reliability and scalability needed to meet these demands.”

Lowest Cost, Highest Density

Sun’s highly-reliable Netra 440 server is the lowest cost, highest density, NEBS-Level 3 certified (Network Equipment Building Systems), 4-way carrier grade server on the market today. The Netra 440 server start at $13,995 (U.S. list price), up to 45% lower in price than HP’s Itanium2 carrier grade servers, and almost 75 percent less than HP’s PA-RISC carrier grade servers (source: Ideas Int’l Ltd, 1/24/05). The Netra 440 also offers the best compute density (4P/5U) of any comparable carrier grade server, helping to enable service providers and carriers to deploy more capacity and capability in a single rack. For more information, visit: http://www.sun.com/netra.

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, Netra, 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.

Outstanding Performance Results with SPECweb99_SSL, Linpack, and Leading Business Application Providers

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced new industry-leading results with its Sun Fire UltraSPARC IV based servers running SPECweb99_SSL for secure web-based applications and Linpack for high performance computing. This follows similar records for the Sun Fire midrange platform with key ISVs such as Siebel Systems, further demonstrating the ability to deliver optimized application performance and breakthrough price/performance through Sun’s balanced system architecture. Since the launch of UltraSPARC IV based system, Sun Fire servers have set 14 world records across a range of industry standard and ISV-specific benchmarks.

Sun Fire V490 Servers Set World Record with SPECweb99_SSL

The SPECweb99_SSL is an industry-standard measure of secure web and application serving performance, relevant to all organizations looking to create secure network computing infrastructures such as secure online banking and ecommerce, provision of public health services, or supply chain management. Sun’s world record SPECweb99_SSL result was over 18 percent faster than the previous record from HP1 and supported 10,700 conforming connections on a cluster of 4 Sun Fire V490 servers, each powered by 4 UltraSPARC IV 1050MHz processors. This result was achieved using Sun Java System Web Server 6.1 SP2, a “real world” web server on the Solaris Operating System (OS), that demonstrated a secure web solution can sustain a large and scalable number of high throughput secure web server connections.

Sun Fire E6900 Server Delivers on High Performance Computing

The Sun Fire E6900 server utilizing UltraSPARC IV processors demonstrated over 2x performance improvement over the previous generation Sun Fire 6800 servers on the Linpack benchmark1. The doubled performance boost is attributable to Chip- multithreaded processors combined with the new Solaris 10 Operating System optimized for multi-threaded workloads. The Linpack Benchmark is a high performance computing benchmark that measures a computer’s floating-point rate of execution. The results reflect the computer systems capability to solve a dense system of linear equations.

Leading Application Providers Deliver World Records on Sun

Previously announced results on Sun Fire midrange servers were achieved with Siebel Systems2 and other key ISVs for their enterprise applications on the UltraSPARC IV processors and Solaris OS. These results demonstrated that Sun builds systems optimized to run in real-world application performance versus benchmarks that are tuned for lab environments. The high availability, reliability, and record-breaking performance of Solaris running on Sun Fire systems makes it an ideal platform for the most demanding organizations running mission-critical enterprise, High Performance Technical Computing (HPTC), and compute-intensive applications.

For more information on Sun Fire systems and world record price/performance on real-world applications, visit http://www.sun.com/servers/entry/v490/benchmarks.html and http://www.sun.com/servers/midrange/sunfire_e2900/benchmarks.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, Solaris, Sun Fire, Java and The Network Is The Computer are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. All SPARC trademarks are used under license and are trademarks or registered trademarks of SPARC International, Inc. in the United States and other countries. Products bearing SPARC trademarks are based upon an architecture developed by Sun Microsystems, Inc.

1. SPEC and the benchmark name SPECweb99_SSL are registered trademarks of the Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation. HP’s 16-way rx8620 Itanium 1.5GHz server produced a SPECweb99 score of 9060 simultaneous user connections. Comparisons are based upon published results as of 2/1/05. For the latest SPEC benchmark results, visit http://www.spec.org/web99ssl/results/.

2. All results current as of January 10, 2005. Based on 24-way Sun Fire E6900 server (1.2 GHz) Linpack Rmax result of 98.26 as compared to the 24-way 1.2GHz Sun Fire 6800 Linpack Rmax result of 47.52. Source: http://performance.netlib.org/benchmark/performance.ps

3. Siebel and Siebel PSPP are trademarks of Siebel Systems, Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. The Siebel PSPP standard benchmark results are audited and certified by Siebel Systems. For benchmark results and criteria, visit www.siebel.com/crm/performance-benchmark.shtm.

Technology and Stock Trading Innovators Join Forces in Trading of CPU Usage Cycles

During its quarterly Network Computing ’05 (NC05Q1) launch today, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) and Archipelago Holdings Inc. (PCX: AX), operator of the Archipelago Exchange (ArcaEx), the first totally open, all-electronic stock exchange in the United States, announced the companies plan to build the world’s first online compute exchange.

Based on the new Sun Grid and Archipelago’s electronic matching technology, the companies plan to introduce a new electronic trading environment that will allow customers to bid on CPU usage cycles. Being able to dynamically bid for open compute cycles will provide companies across the globe with unprecedented flexibility in planning for the purchase and use of compute power. This is a new paradigm in computing where companies can access an unlimited number of CPUs as they need them.

“Archipelago leads the way when it comes to electronic trading technology,” said Robert Youngjohns, executive vice president of strategic development and Sun financing at Sun Microsystems, Inc. “With Sun Grid, and Archipelago’s matching technology, we expect companies will be able to access an unlimited number of CPUs as they need them–and have access to technology that is reliable, simple to use, powerful, and sophisticated–at a single point of contact.”

“We believe the technological underpinnings of the Archipelago Exchange could be customized to trade nearly anything, and as the demand for computing power increases, we see great potential in building an exchange for trading CPU usage cycles,” said Steve Rubinow, CTO of the Archipelago Exchange. “We’re excited about partnering with Sun and developing this opportunity.”

The compute exchange announcement comes on the back of Sun’s new utility offerings, which include the Sun Grid compute utility, a $1 (USD) per CPU per hour pay-per-use offering ($1/cpu-hr), and the Sun Grid storage utility, a $1 (USD) per gigabyte per month offering ($1/GB-mo). In the coming months, Sun will also roll out additional Sun Grid offerings for the desktop and developer communities.

Sun’s NC05Q1 Web event is available on the World Wide Web at sun.com/nc/05q1. More information on today’s announcements, including full press releases and product details, can be viewed at Sun’s online press kit(http://sun.com/aboutsun/media/presskits/networkcomputing05q1/).

About Archipelago

Archipelago Holdings Inc. (PCX: AX) operates the Archipelago Exchange (ArcaEx), the first open all-electronic stock market in the United States. ArcaEx trades Nasdaq-listed equity securities and exchange listed equity securities, including those traded on the New York Stock Exchange, American Stock Exchange and Pacific Exchange. ArcaEx offers corporate issuers and investors the advantages of meeting directly, without intermediaries, within a fully electronic and totally transparent environment. ArcaEx is a facility of, and regulated by, the Pacific Exchange, a registered exchange. ArcaEx was approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission in October 2001 and began trading operations in March 2002. The Archipelago ECN, a precursor to ArcaEx, was one of the four original ECNs, formed in December 1996 with Townsend Analytics. For more information please visit http://www.arcaex.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 Microsystems, the Sun Logo, Solaris, Java, N1 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.

Certain statements in this press release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements are based on the companies’ current expectations and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in the statements. There can be no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. Factors that could cause the companies’ results to differ materially from current expectations include without limitation: general economic and business conditions, industry trends, competitive conditions, regulatory developments as well as other risks identified in the companies’ filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This press release is for informational purposes only and is not intended as an offer or solicitation with respect to the purchase or sale of any security.