INDUSTRY

Sun Microsystems, Inc., and Metapa Inc., a leading provider of high-performance analytic infrastructure software, today announced that E! Networks, the world's largest producer and distributor of entertainment news and lifestyle-related programming, has chosen to deploy their integrated data warehousing solution. E! Networks, leveraging Metapa's breakthrough Cluster DataBase (CDB) solution for the Sun Solaris Operating System (OS) on Sun Fire servers based on AMD Opteron processors, aims to achieve unprecedented price/performance results for its enterprise class data warehouse system. "Deploying a unified data warehouse has always been a strategic goal of E!, but with the total cost of ownership associated with traditional solutions, it hasn't been practical," said Jeff Mayzurk, vice president of technology for E! Networks. "Metapa and Sun provided a truly unique solution allowing us to implement an enterprise class data warehouse with the price/performance level that makes our initiative possible." Metapa's CDB solution is the industry's first database clustering platform "purpose-built" to enable high-performance business intelligence on low-cost systems like the Sun Fire V40z server. Sun's enterprise-class, Solaris OS for x86 systems continues to gain massive industry momentum, delivering uncompromised performance, reliability and security at a lower-cost with the high performance of the Sun servers based on AMD Opteron processor. The combined Metapa and Sun solution at E! Networks can integrate both detailed online and offline operational data into a single, consolidated data warehouse capable of supporting sophisticated business level reporting and analysis. Additionally, the solution can provide the Business Intelligence infrastructure necessary for key E! Networks executives and television programming personnel to better understand and optimize programming for both its customers and partners. "Metapa and Sun are excited to announce E! Networks as a joint customer and a flagship example of how companies can capitalize on the performance advantages and operational returns of open source and commodity computing for data warehousing," said Dave Powell, president and CEO of Metapa. "CDB leverages commodity computing, open source database technologies and breakthrough parallel processing algorithms to deliver unprecedented price/performance when compared to traditional, proprietary database solutions." "E! Networks' application is a great validation of Sun's offering for the x86 server market that focuses on simplifying and reducing the total cost of ownership for enterprise IT initiatives," said John Loiacono, executive vice president of Software at Sun. "With Metapa's CDB, E! Networks can take full advantage of Sun's Solaris OS and servers based on AMD Opteron processors to support large-scale business intelligence applications." Metapa's CDB delivers dramatic query acceleration and storage capacity by enabling companies to deploy tera-byte scale data warehouses (one to many) on clusters of low-cost servers, while ensuring enterprise-class reliability, linear scalability and easy integration with existing IT environments. Sun's #1 UNIX(R)-based OS stands as a continuation of Sun's strategy to increase affordability, availability, security and manageability of the Network Computer. Based in Los Angeles, E! Networks is the world's largest producer and distributor of entertainment news and lifestyle-related programming. The company operates E! Entertainment Television, the 24-hour network with programming dedicated to the world of entertainment; The Style Network where life gets a new look, and E! Online, located at http://www.eonline.com/ . E! is currently available to 85 million cable and direct broadcast satellite subscribers in the U.S. Style currently counts 36 million subscribers with commitments to reach over 40 million in 2004. E! Online reaches 6 million monthly unique U.S. adult users. Internationally, E! programming can be seen in more than 120 countries worldwide, reaching 300 million homes. In addition to its ventures for locally programmed, E! branded channels outside the U.S., the company operates the E! International Network, a 24-hour English language global entertainment channel available via satellite in Europe, Asia Pacific and the Middle East. Metapa is the leader in enabling customers to move Business Intelligence (BI) applications to open-source, commodity technology. Founded in April 2000, Metapa is led by an experienced team of executives from the industry's leading Internet infrastructure and enterprise software companies. Having deployed some of the world's largest infrastructure services and supercomputers, Metapa's founding team recognized the need for solutions to address the challenges of high performance/low cost business intelligence. Headquartered in Los Angeles, California, Metapa is financed by Dawntreader Ventures, Hudson Ventures, and Mission Ventures. For more information, visit www.metapa.com.