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SANTA CLARA -- Broadening its footprint in financial services to the retail banking industry, Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Infosys Technologies, Ltd., today unveiled a new iForce solution based on the Retail Banking Reference Architecture. The Retail Banking Reference Architecture makes it easier for banks to respond to customer demand for 24 x 7 web-enabled banking, Straight Through Processing (STP) and a unified channel access to manage their personal financial information. The Retail Banking Reference Architecture is based on a web-based architecture, and has been tested and tuned in Sun's iForce(SM) Solution Center located in Menlo Park, Calif. It has been documented through implementation and sizing guides to help banks accelerate the delivery of web-based, end-to-end banking solutions; increase operational efficiencies; reduce costs through high utilization rates in the Information Technology environment; and generate new revenue streams. "We chose the new generation core banking reference architecture from Infosys and Sun because it is a tested and proven platform that meets our aggressive growth plans and provides us the required business agility to meet the challenges of today's volatile banking environment," said V K Khanna, General Manager, Department of Information Technology, Union Bank of India. "We welcome this Reference Architecture initiative by Infosys and Sun." As banks shift from legacy IT platforms to more modern, flexible and web-enabled platforms, it is critical for them to implement and deploy new banking solutions on time, on budget and with no disruption to their business operations. The Retail Banking Reference Architecture offers a low-risk path for migration needs, offers banks a platform to keep pace with changing customer needs and market dynamics, and creates a competitive differentiation in their products and services. These services can be delivered through various retail delivery channels such as call centers, Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) and retail kiosks -- as seen in grocery stores and mobile tellers. In addition, the Retail Banking Reference Architecture provides a unified view across channels and helps enable banks to significantly reduce cycle times and operational costs. "Many banks today run legacy batch applications on costly mainframes that have limited flexibility to support modern banking solutions," said Steve Campbell, vice president marketing, Enterprise Systems Products Group, Sun Microsystems. "The Retail Banking Reference Architecture from Sun and Infosys has been tested, tuned and proven to support a web-enabled core banking solution that is cost-effective, and offers tremendous flexibility -- most times not available on legacy IT platforms. In addition, the implementation and sizing guides can help banks eliminate some of the guesswork when deciding what tools are needed in developing web-based applications, resulting in a faster time to market, reduced costs through high utilization and increased revenue." "In September, 2002, we announced a strategic global alliance with Sun to deliver powerful next generation banking solutions. Today's announcement of the Retail Banking Reference Architecture is an example of how we work together to provide our mutual customers with the tools needed to seamlessly implement our enterprise banking solutions," said Merwin Fernandes, vice president and head of sales and marketing, Banking Business Unit, Infosys Technologies Ltd. "The Reference Architecture is based on Finacle Core Banking from Infosys and runs on the Solaris(TM) Operating Environment from Sun Microsystems, providing banks around the world a powerful and flexible platform to reduce operational costs and enhance efficiencies on one hand, and to achieve and retain business agility on the other through constant product innovation and superior time to market." Finacle Core Banking is a completely web-based, centralized, multi-lingual and multi-currency new generation core banking solution from Infosys. By leveraging its systems expertise, Sun is able to provide a complete and highly optimized solution for retail banking, including scalable, high performance servers and storage devices, as well as software from the Sun(TM) Open Net Environment (Sun ONE) product portfolio for the development and delivery of web-based applications. The Retail Banking Reference Architecture also includes: -- Sun Fire(TM) V880, 4800 and 6800 Servers -- Sun StorEdge(TM) T3 Arrays -- Sun Ray(TM) Stateless Clients -- Solaris 8 Operating Environment -- Sun ONE Web Server -- Sun ONE Studio (Forte compilers) -- Sun Cluster 3.0 Sun StorEdge Availability Suite -- Sun Management Center 3.0 -- Infosys Finacle Core Banking Platform 6.2 -- Oracle 8i RDBMS -- VERITAS File System, Volume Manager and Quick I/O -- Mercury LoadRunner About Sun Reference Architectures Reference Architectures define the hardware and software components needed to build end-to-end solutions to help meet specific business needs. Each reference architecture has been designed, tested and documented, so customers can reduce the complexity, costs and risks of deploying new technology in their enterprise. Reference Architectures are available now in Sun's iForce Solution Center in Menlo Park to enable customers to build their own proof of concept solution and customize it for their own IT environment at no additional charge. In addition, Sun Reference Architectures can be configured and integrated on systems at Sun prior to shipping, through the Sun Customer Ready Systems (CRS) program, further accelerating application deployment. More information can be found by visiting: http://www.sun.com/integration/refarch/index.html .