INTERCONNECTS

Sun Microsystems, Inc. today delivered another $500 million in technology innovation to its customers at the fourth quarterly Network Computer '03 (NC03Q4) launch. At the SunNetwork(SM) Conference in Berlin -- where over 5,000 European business leaders and IT professionals and 200 partners have gathered -- Sun introduced more than 20 new products to help customers improve performance while slashing the cost and complexity of their Network Computing infrastructures. "In the past year, we've worked aggressively with partners like AMD and Oracle to leverage industry economics and bring the value of the Solaris(TM) Operating System and the Sun Java(TM) System to low-cost computing platforms," said Scott McNealy, chairman, president and CEO of Sun Microsystems. "In the past four quarters, we've delivered almost 100 new features for the Network Computer, ranging from low-cost x86 and UltraSPARC(R)-based systems running the Solaris Operating System and Linux through to a complete blades platform with N1 software solutions and our radical new Sun Java System for the enterprise and the desktop. And we've taken all these individual hardware and software components to build 30 Reference Architectures and Infrastructure Solutions for our customers. We're working steadily and unwaveringly to bring our customers what they want and need -- the Network Computer." Sun today announced the following new features for the Network Computer: -- Extreme Performance At Compelling Price Points with New x86-based Systems: Sun is leveraging industry economics to bring customers the enterprise-class benefits of Solaris OS and Java technology to its Sun Fire(TM) x86-based systems. The newest addition to Sun's low-cost x86 line-up is the Sun Fire B100x, a single processor, x86 blade server that utilizes AMD's Mobile Athlon XP 1800 processor. The Sun Fire B100x is an integral part of the Sun Fire B1600 Blade Platform -- the industry's first multi-architecture blade platform. Sun also plans to deliver high performance x86 server solutions with its Sun Fire V65x and V60x systems, utilizing new 3.2 GHz Xeon processors. Sun will continue to grow its low-cost portfolio starting in early 2004 with new AMD Opteron processor-based systems that offer extreme performance at compelling prices. -- Rugged Low-Cost Platforms for the Telecommunications Market: The new Netra(TM) 240 server, the industry's first and only 64-bit, NEBS Level 3 certified server that runs on the UltraSPARC IIIi processor, is a ruggedized, rack-optimized 2U server priced below comparable HP and IBM systems. Sun also unveiled the Netra CT820 server, which runs on the carrier-proven UltraSPARC and Solaris platform. With Sun's superior manageability technology, customers can save up to 40 percent on their software development costs for operations, administration and maintenance. -- High Performance Visualization and Technical Computing Solutions: The Sun Blade(TM) 2500 workstation, the Sun Fire Visual Grid solution, the Sun(TM) XVR-600 graphics accelerator card and the SX1500 and SX2500 boards allow high-performance compute customers to scale-out and reduce the cost of high-performance visualization and technical computing. -- Low-Risk Network Computing Implementations Can Help Customers Save Millions and Realize ROI as much as 175 percent: Seven new solutions add to Sun's growing portfolio of Reference Architectures and Infrastructure Solutions. Three of the new solution methodologies -- Sun Migration Reference Architecture for Tru64 systems, Sun Infrastructure Solution for Tru64 and Sun Infrastructure Solution for Mainframe Migration -- were designed to help customers move off older platforms to more cost effective, open systems. Additional Sun Reference Architectures introduced today include: Secure Web Server Reference Architecture, Enhanced Communications Services Reference Architecture, Supply Chain Management Reference Architecture and Web Application Firewall Reference Architecture. -- Customer and Industry Momentum for Sun's Solaris, Java System and N1 Software Solutions: Launched at NC03Q3, Sun's Java System is already gaining steam with customers. Sun announced special pricing at $1,000 U.S. List Price per processor for Independent Software Vendors and Original Equipment Manufacturers. Sun will also partner with EDS for Sun Java Desktop support in the enterprise. Sun's Solaris x86 Operating System is also going pervasive with its availability on 170 Sun and third party platforms, and the availability of over 1000 applications from more than 600 partners. Sun's N1 roadmap is also garnering momentum with a total of 100 N1 customers and the new N1 Service Provisioning System 4.1 solution reducing time to service deployment for the Network Computer.