CHEMISTRY

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- On the heels of its landmark Sun(TM) Java(TM) Enterprise System announcements, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:SUNW) today announced more than 300,000 registered licenses of the Solaris(TM) 9 Operating System (OS) (x86 Platform Edition). This volume attests to a surge in customer demand for the secure, reliable and highly performant Solaris OS on a variety of x86 systems, setting the foundation for continued growth and interest in Sun's Java Enterprise System. GetMore Securities, Gracenote, Maya Online, the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research and Tellme Networks, Inc. are among a growing list of customers and partners from key industries such as telecommunications, entertainment and finance who are already taking advantage of the feature-rich Solaris OS x86 platform. Customer value will continue to increase with the recently announced Java Enterprise System. The Java Enterprise System will offer users an integrated Web services stack with bundled consulting and support services -- all for $100/employee/year, at unlimited scale for internal and external deployed applications. Sun's Solaris OS, available on Sun x86 and SPARC(TM) systems and more than 160 third-party x86 platforms, is at the heart of the Java Enterprise System. With the Java Enterprise System and the Solaris OS x86 platform, Sun is providing one of the most affordable, reliable and secure software infrastructures in the industry. Superior Performance "With the Solaris OS x86 platform, GetMore Securities enhanced Home Trading System performance by more than 3X by migrating from NT to the Solaris OS x86 platform," said Chongmo Kim, IT Manager, GetMore Securities, a provider of online stock exchange systems. "By utilizing the Solaris OS x86 platform, we not only benefit from the associated cost benefits, but also from increased system reliability and scalability, helping us to quickly respond to customer requests and increase our overall level of service." Sun's investments in the Solaris OS for x86 platforms include projects that aggressively leverage x86 extended instruction sets and architectures to rapidly drive performance advances. "Customers are finding real value in the security, performance and stability of Solaris OS x86 platform. And with the Java Enterprise System users can further extend their value by taking advantage of the integrated software components on x86 hardware -- provided by Sun, or our OEMs and partners," said Ann Wettersten, vice president, systems software product marketing, Sun Microsystems. "The recent increase in demand -- including ISV adoption, increased hardware support and channel partners -- demonstrates that customers from key industries such as telecommunications and financial services are benefiting from Solaris x86 platform cost savings today. Whether it is operating systems, network identity services, portals, communications and collaboration, security, availability or Java Web services, Sun is committed to driving out cost while increasing value to our customers and partners." "By utilizing the Solaris OS x86 platform, we were able to take advantage of the Solaris OS threading library, enabling Gracenote to provide improved performance on Intel-based hardware," said Matthew Leeds, VP Operations, Gracenote, a provider of information services for digital music and media. "This performance gain directly benefits developers at music companies like Sony and Real Networks, allowing them to provide customers with faster, more reliable service." The #1 UNIX(R) on x86 hardware systems Organizations with expertise in the Solaris OS can leverage familiar tools and their UNIX experience to bring the Solaris OS to their x86-based hardware. "Our staff levels are considerably lower than those of a typical commercial environment. Anything we can do to reduce the cost, training and work required to establish our research infrastructure is critical to the overall success of the project," said Gerry Vest, Systems Administrator for Department of Genetics, Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research. "Because we were already familiar with Sun's Solaris OS, the Solaris (x86 Platform Edition) allowed us to minimize training, which enabled us to get a large research project up and running with minimal time and staff. Using the Solaris OS (x86 Platform Edition) we were also able to save money using commodity servers." Reliability and High Availability Businesses can't afford unplanned downtime, especially in today's service-oriented economy. The Solaris OS (x86 Platform Edition) helps companies achieve higher levels of system availability -- allowing them to pass these benefits directly to customers. "System stability is definitely our critical success factor. In the past, online game companies often developed their products on NT platform, which created a problem of system instability and complicated administration," said Huang Chi-cheng, COO of Maya Online. "Maya Online is the first online game company in Taiwan to develop its product on a Solaris platform. During the process, we were very excited to see the advantages of high stability, cross-platform operation and workload balance." Increased Efficiencies The Solaris OS (x86 Platform Edition) helps improve scalability and performance of applications, providing users with increased efficiencies. "Tellme runs Solaris OS x86 on our customized, high-density rackmount servers. Solaris x86 helps us to ensure optimal hardware utilization, essential in serving the needs of our Fortune 500 clients," said Jonathan DiOrio, Director of Business Development at Tellme Networks, Inc., the world's largest and most commercially proven Voice Application Network provider. Security and Protection On top of the built-in security of the Solaris OS, Trusted Solaris(TM) is the only enterprise-class operating system that provides the highest level of assurance compared to any other operating system in the market. Broad Hardware Support In addition to enterprise-class features, customers can also take advantage of broad hardware support for the Solaris OS x86 Platform Edition. Currently, the Solaris OS (x86 Platform Edition) is available on Sun hardware and on more than 160 third-party systems. Competitive Pricing "What customers really want is to lower costs -- but not at the expense of performance and security. Sun's Solaris OS x86 is an attractive alternative to Windows," said Alban Richard, director, Solaris x86 marketing, Sun Microsystems. "In a typical workgroup or Web infrastructure environment, the Solaris OS x86 can deliver up to 13 times lower acquisition costs over Microsoft Windows 2003."