Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ:SUNW) continues to drive down the cost of 64-bit computing with a 20 percent trade-in allowance for customers upgrading legacy Sun(TM) systems to new Sun Blade(TM) 1500 or 2500 workstations. This offer is available today to customers worldwide, and will last until June 30, 2004. -- With a starting price of $2,995 before trade-in discount, the Sun Blade 1500 is over 30% cheaper than the Itanium based HP zx2000. The Sun Blade 1500 workstation has been optimized for 2-D and 3-D applications such as CAD, MCAD, and EDA. It supports both 32- and 64-bit applications, providing a flexible, low-cost platform for software development. -- The Sun Blade 2500 workstation is Sun's first multiprocessor-capable 64-bit UNIX traditional workstation starting under $5000 before trade- in discount -- 37% less expensive than the IBM POWER 275 workstation. It's optimized for large, complex model design and applications such as virtual prototyping, seismic analysis, and large image manipulation. In its dual UltraSPARC(R) IIIi processor configuration, the Sun Blade 2500 workstation offers industry-leading price/performance -- up to 40% better price/performance than the Itanium 2-based HP zx6000 workstation. This system is ideal for manufacturing, oil and gas, and EDA applications and supports up to two powerful Sun XVR-600 and XVR-1200 graphics accelerators for running compute-intensive 3-D and visualization applications.