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Sun: Lead-with-innovation strategy pays off


Johannesburg, 14 Jan 2005

Sun Microsystems says in 2004 it rolled out the most innovative systems portfolio in its 20-plus year history. Through its quarterly network computing launch cycle, Sun has delivered solutions that address critical business needs like complexity, interoperability, scalability and simplicity.

"The breadth of Sun's line-up today is stronger than at any time in our history and the competition is sitting up and taking note," says Vito Bonafede, Sun Microsystems regional manager for sub-Saharan Africa.

He believes it is Sun's unwavering dedication to research and development that enables it to supply technology and pricing models that give businesses a competitive-edge.

"The future of network computing will be driven by those willing to buck the status quo, conquer existing cultural barriers and shift capital away from today's fixed-cost models and closed systems," he says.

Bonafede says with the continued commoditisation of bandwidth, companies are positioning themselves to leverage economies of scale delivered by outside providers of standards-based Net services such as computing power, applications and Internet infrastructure.

"Sun's transparent pricing, coupled with vendor-neutral technology, is providing the roadmap for our customers to get ahead of this trend and be the leaders of tomorrow."

Over the past year, Sun has introduced hundreds of innovative products and services in its quarterly launch cycle that have helped reduce the cost and complexity of doing business over the network. A highlight of Sun's year was the launch of the Solaris 10 Operating System, probably the most advanced Unix in the market.

"With over 600 new innovations and the best Unix to Linux interoperability, Solaris 10 sets a new benchmark for operating system performance, vendor neutrality and security. Sun also added 140 business software applications for Solaris 10 to the already 12 000 plus available to Solaris users," says Bonafede.

In its hardware business, Sun Fire systems were introduced based on the new UltraSPARC IV and AMD Opteron processors. "Optimised for chip multithreading, Sun's dual core UltraSPARC IV processor has revamped Sun's entire UltraSPARC family of systems, enabling enterprises to scale up to nearly twice the horsepower of previous Sun systems in the same footprint and featuring better price-performance than any major competitor," Bonafede notes.

This year also saw the introduction of the AMD Opteron processor into Sun Fire systems. Running 32-bit and 64-bit applications, Sun's Opteron processor-based server is 45% faster than comparable systems and runs Solaris, Red Hat Linux, SUSE Linux or Windows operating systems with Microsoft Hardware Compatibility List (HCL) certifications.

Designed to simplify and improve data management, protection and compliance, Sun introduced an extensive revamp of its storage systems, delivering everything from a midrange storage system that sets a new standard in scalability and price/performance and a new high-end enterprise storage platform with full virtualisation, replication and data movement capabilities.

Finally, Bonafede draws attention to the continued success of the Java programming platform, which received its most significant update since its inception in 1995. "Introduced in 2004, the Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition 5 (J2SETM 5) is the most significant upgrade to the Java platform and programming language since its initial release nearly a decade ago. We anticipate continued success going into 2005 as the Sun culture of innovation that addresses business requirements drives our strategy," Bonafede concludes.

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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://www.sun.com.

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 standards-based software system is delivered as a single, pre-integrated entity on a predictable release cycle.

Radically simplified customer pricing - $100 per employee per year (US list price) - delivers the peace of mind CIOs need to focus on what they do best: leverage IT to achieve business goals. The Java Enterprise System enterprise network services provide the core set of functionalities that businesses need to compete effectively in the marketplace: portal, communication and collaboration, network identity, application and Web, availability and security services. For more information on the Java Enterprise System, please visit http://www.sun.com/software/javaenterprisesystem.

Editorial contacts

Claire Alexander
Sun Microsystems
(011) 256 6300