Customers and Partners Turn to Sun’s New AMD Opteron Processor-Based Workstations For Better Performance and Increased Flexibility at a Lower Price
Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) today announced that customers, developers and partners are rapidly adopting the new Sun Java Workstations based on AMD Opteron processors for their technical and heavy duty workloads across a range of industries, including document management, life sciences, oil & gas, digital content creation and software development. With support for the Solaris Operating System (OS), Red Hat Linux, SUSE Linux or Microsoft Windows, these workstations give customers maximum flexibility for growth at industry-leading price/performance. Customers also benefit from the ability to run both 32-bit and 64-bit applications within a single architecture.
“The superior performance, visualization-class graphics and increased memory of the new Sun Java Workstations make them ideal for technical applications in multiple industries,” said Brian Healy, director of workstation product marketing at Sun Microsystems, Inc. “Whether they’re used for product design, digital content creation or seismic data analysis, these workstations provide customers leading price/performance with a proven 32- to 64-bit growth path.”
Sun Java Workstations Give Xerox a Performance Edge for Document Reproduction
Xerox Corporation evaluated and purchased the new Sun Java Workstation W1100z because of the tremendous performance gains it saw with the new AMD Opteron processor-based systems. The units are used to manage document reproduction control stations for customers typically overseeing very large print jobs.
“The AMD Opteron processor-based workstations are an excellent addition to the Sun product line and nicely complement its SPARC-based offerings,” said Rich Lauria, manager, production controller unit, Xerox Corporation. “We are consistently seeking ways to provide more value to our customers, and the benchmark price/performance achieved by the Sun Java Workstation W1100z make it an attractive solution for several demanding product applications.”
Sun and NVIDIA Team to Deliver Leading Next-Generation Graphics with Sun Java Workstations
Through a strategic alliance with NVIDIA, Sun is shipping NVIDIA Quadro graphics technology with the Sun Java Workstations, offering the ultimate in performance, precision, programmability and quality. These professional graphics solutions allow Sun to deliver industry-leading two- and three-dimension performance improvements, including higher bus bandwidth, increased memory bandwidth, improved rendering speeds and the ability to deploy large data sets (up to 16 GB in size) across multiple operating systems. Customers in CAD/CAM, EDA, DCC, life sciences, oil & gas, defense, scientific research, financial services and software engineering can all reap the benefits of these advanced workstation solutions. Sun and NVIDIA will continue to work together to deliver new NVIDIA technologies in future Sun products.
“With more than 10 years of 64-bit computing expertise and over 2 million 64-bit workstations sold, Sun has long been a leader in the 64-bit computing market,” said Jeff Fisher, executive vice president of sales at NVIDIA. “Sun continued that trend by introducing a complete portfolio of industry-leading x86 AMD Opteron processor-based workstations, and Sun is once again primed to make a profound impact on the workstation market.”
Sun Java Workstations Power Biomedical “BioWall” Visualization Environment
Biomedical researchers and scientists at the National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research (NCMIR) and the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC) located at the University of California, San Diego use Sun Java Workstations, NVIDIA Quadro FX graphics and partner technologies to power the “BioWall Tiled Display.” This 20-tile “wall” of high-resolution flat-panel displays, measuring five monitors across and four monitors high and supporting 40 megapixels, is used to project incredibly detailed two- and three-dimensional images, allowing scientists to better understand biological structures and functional relationships in cells and tissues.
“The extreme graphics capabilities and large per-tile memory footprint of the AMD Opteron processor-based Sun Java Workstations allow us to interactively visualize our massive three-dimensional datasets that can measure as large as 200 GB at full resolution,” said Dr. Mark Ellisman, NCMIR director. “This is only possible by using the extensive hardware and systems expertise of Sun and working closely with partners at the Electronics Visualization Lab at the University of Illinois, Chicago and the Rocks Clustering Group at SDSC. Taken together, this allows us to focus on our biomedical science drivers, maximize our current resources, and save both time and money.”
Sun Makes Worldwide Revenue and Unit Market Share Gains During the Second Quarter of 2004
Recent market share data released by IDC, a leading provider of global IT research and advice, confirms Sun’s position for the 40th consecutive quarter as the undisputed leader in Traditional Workstation (TWS) unit shipments and revenue, with both quarter-over-quarter and year-over-year share increases. According to IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Workstation QView, Sun’s workstations represent 71.1% of all worldwide units shipped in the Traditional Workstation Market, gaining 1 market share point on a quarter-to-quarter basis and nearly 2 points on an annual basis. Sun workstations account for nearly 50% of worldwide revenue market share in the traditional UNIX/RISC platform segment.
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
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