RETAIL

SAN FRANCISCO -- Sun Microsystems, Inc. increased the affordability, availability, security and manageability of the Network Computer at its Network Computer 03, Q2 launch (NC03Q2), introducing new features, elements, solutions and services. "Last quarter we introduced new form factors and management features for the Network Computer," said Scott McNealy, chairman, president and CEO of Sun Microsystems. "Smart CIO's are managing their diverse IT portfolios as a single enterprise architecture rather than a haphazard collection of distributed technologies. Today we're delivering new features that make the Network Computer more reliable, more available and more secure than ever." "At the same time we're giving developers more secure and open tools to build services for the Network Computer. And we're offering our iForce(TM) partner community elements that are integrated and integrateable, so they can continue to build their Network Computer to better serve their customers' business needs," McNealy added. "The net effect of NC03Q2 is that our customers will be better equipped to build and manage heterogeneous Network Computers so they can get to market quicker and increase ROI." Sun Today Announced the Following New Features for The Network Computer: More Affordability -- Sun's Sun StorEdge(TM) 6000 Family, including the Sun StorEdge 6120 array and 6320 system, provide unprecedented speed of deployment, maximum flexibility and over 25 percent better performance at prices that are nearly 20 percent below HP. New Sun Fire(TM) V210 and Sun Fire V240 UltraSPARC(R) and Solaris(TM) Operating System based Network Computing elements start at sub-$3K price points with Sun(TM) Open Net Environment (Sun ONE) software, providing significantly more value at 20 percent lower cost than comparable HP systems. Industry Leading Availability -- New advanced reliability features that introduce intelligent system monitoring and recovery capabilities in Sun Fire 3800-15K servers. Increased Manageability & Utilization -- Sun unveiled new N1(TM) technologies, further delivering on its vision of a simpler, more manageable network computing environment. The new N1 Data Platform delivers storage pooling and consolidation through virtualization of compute resources, allowing customers to flexibly allocate their existing storage resources, as well as new systems, as and when they are needed. Sun also unveiled Sun StorEdge Enterprise Storage Manager 1.2 and Sun StorEdge Enterprise Backup Software 7.0 to provide the heterogeneous, flexible and open storage management tools customers need to either better manage SAN environments or provide centralized data protection. Improved Performance -- New Sun(TM) XVR-100 and Sun XVR-1200 graphics accelerators deliver the best available graphics technology, quality and flexibility to Solaris-based desktop system users. New Sun Fire SuperClusters deliver high-performance, highly productive open platforms for Terascale computing, combining the Sun Fire 6800, 12K and 15K servers with Sun's industry-leading Sun Fire Link interconnect and Sun HPC ClusterTools(TM) 5 software. Unprecedented Security -- New Trusted Solaris x86; Sun ONE Integration Server B2B; Sun ONE Collaborative Business Platform; Sun ONE Instant Messaging 6.0 and Sun Management Center 3.5 are designed to provide maximum data protection for customers. New Sun(TM) Crypto Accelerator 500 and 4000 boards provide optimized, scalable SSL and IPSec operations at speeds up to 10 times greater than a system CPU can achieve, reducing customers' cost of ownership for delivering secure traffic. Faster time to ROI -- New Integrated Systems, Solutions and Services to Better Manage the Network Computer and Accelerate 'Time to ROI'. These include four new pre-integrated and tested Sun Infrastructure Solutions for: -- Enterprise Consolidation: Improves efficiencies, service levels, and the utilization of resources in the data center. -- Infinite Mailbox: The industry's first dynamic, policy-based email administration environment. -- Enterprise Continuity: First active clustering solution to provide near real-time application and data recovery over distances of more than 120 miles. -- Network Identity: The industry's first complete, pre-integrated, standards-based federated network identity solution. "Our solution strategy starts with R&D that is production-proven in our iForce centers and ends with mass customization via Sun Services and our iForce partner community," added McNealy. "We are systematically accelerating the time to service and ROI by capturing the most frequent design patterns and methodologies for a 'step and repeat' effect in our customer base. Unlike our competitors, we are putting structure into our Infrastructure Solutions." Sun also unveiled three new Services to help customers reduce costs and complexity, and improve delivery of Network Computing: -- Sun Managed Services: Provides customers with consistent, best practices-driven operation and support. -- Sun Utility Computing: Includes metering and monitoring technology, flexible financing with capacity-on-demand and pay-per-use business models, allowing customers to use the Network Computer as a Utility. -- Sun Net Connect Services: Enable service delivery via the Internet, including Sun Net Connect 3.0, a network-enabled IT resource management tool for automated management of Sun servers and storage devices.