INTERCONNECTS

SANTA CLARA, CA -- Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW) announced today that all 14 universities in Pennsylvania's State System of Higher Education, which serves more than 98,600 students, will convert to a single Web-based student information system that runs on Sun Microsystems servers. The State System of Higher Education decided to implement a comprehensive Web-based solution after a Gartner Group study of information systems at five of its universities suggested that replacing legacy systems would result in savings or cost avoidance of approximately $29 million over the next 10 years. The implementation will service the entire State System from one location and a centralized operation with a single database. SAP will provide the application software, with the 14 universities transitioning to the shared system in phases over five to seven years. The deal will begin with an implementation of mySAP Financials, with student administration tools expected to follow in spring 2002. The project marks the one of the first-ever implementation of this combination of software services by SAP and, as a Web-based deployment, will be unique in the university market. ``This project means that the State System of Higher Education will have state-of-the-art information technology that reflects the standards of excellence exemplified by our universities,'' said Khalil Yazdi, vice chancellor for information technology. ``Ultimately, all of the students and faculty in our system will have access to resources across all of our Sun Servers to Power Pennsylvania State University System universities.'' ``Sun Microsystems' network computing model has already proven itself with the State System's Keystone Library Network, which was the State System's first effort at system-wide deployment of a critical software application on a common platform,'' said Kim Jones, vice president of global education and research for Sun. ``We're proud to be extending our participation to this even more ambitious project for the State System of Higher Education, which will allow us to demonstrate the value of customized, open networked computing in the education environment.'' For more information visit www.sun.com/edu